


Natural Born Hunters

by hugemind



Category: Natural Born Killers, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Bastard John Winchester, Child Abuse, Explicit Language, Gore, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-11
Updated: 2008-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 12:57:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hugemind/pseuds/hugemind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Mary's death, John hunted and drowned his sorrows in alcohol, his boys a painful reminder of her. One day, his boys take over the family business. They're natural born hunters, dangerous and deadly when facing evil creatures, but in the eyes of the world they're psychopaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natural Born Hunters

**Author's Note:**

> Originally meant for the [reel_spn](http://reel-spn.livejournal.com/) challenge with the intention to write the Show into the movie Natural Born Killers, but I missed the deadline by a lot. The fic is based on the basic plot and characters of the movie and the premise _"Well, he could've gone a whole 'nother way after Mom. A little more tequila, a little less demon-hunting..."_ (as Sam described John in 1x14 Nightmare). Everything makes better sense if you've seen the movie, but this should work as a stand-alone also. Betaed by [bowtrunckle](http://bowtrunckle.livejournal.com/) and [sadelyrate](http://sadelyrate.livejournal.com/) who I can't thank enough - any remaining mistakes are mine alone. Originally posted to LJ on November 11, 2008.

* * *

**Now, June 2003, a forgotten corner of New Mexico**

Heavy yellow dust dances in the June air outside the Impala. The high-noon sun scorches down on Route 84, settling into the black metal skin around them. It gets fucking hot inside even on the best of days -- mind-numbingly burning and stale on the worst -- but Sam wouldn't trade the Impala for anything. The low rattle of the A/C is no contest to Dean drumming his fingers on the leather of the steering wheel, left elbow resting outside the wound-down window. 

Papers in the backseat rustle in the breeze, a thick folder of newspaper clippings of gigs in Arizona and New Mexico, everything from the last few years, most of them researched and solved except for delivering the killing blow. Before, it'd been too painful to come back to the area where their last steady mailing address had been, Dad's dead shadow looming high and tainting entire states. Now, they agreed on four weeks to stamp a big fucking 'SOLVED' on as many cases as possible; risky but there are too many cases already to wait any longer.

They're past the halfway mark, still going; Dean's got his baby and a slow smile, and for Sam it's all there is, all he'll ever need. The weak A/C makes Sam stick his head out the window and grin into the wind.

They're creeping forward, black metal almost a sin against the clear blue sky but they're at home on the worn asphalt -- they set their own pace, make their own rules, live with their veins full of duty and unspoken promises.

 

Dusk falls finally, miles and miles north of Santa Fe, and in the next diner they find a patron enjoying his coffee and a sharp-eyed waitress in a mini skirt. Sam tries to figure out if the waitress could be Dean's type; her dark hair is thick, lips ruby-red, mouth crooked and flirty, when she quickly looks Sam over, then greets Dean. "Howdy. What can I get you?"

Dean sits down like in any other diner and asks about their selection of pie. Sam swears that Dean's obsession with pie is close to unhealthy if it distracts him from the eyefuck the woman's giving him.

Sam turns, leans on the counter for a second, trying to forget the fucking pie, and surveys the open space boxed inside the large windows. The view outside is of the same dust, gone gray and white in the darkness. The patron is a guy with a newspaper spread over the tabletop, and Sam swallows the sudden lump in his throat, hoping to hell that the featured article about the 'three-week long carnage in Southwest' has no pictures. But no such luck, their faces are under the screaming headline, captured by a surveillance camera; the picture's grainy and the print quality's bad but it can't hide their satisfied smiles from a few dozen corpses back.

The publicity was an accident, one fucking security camera on a hunt a few weeks ago and suddenly every dead body is claimed to be their handiwork. At least there's nothing about the months and years before that, though. It's not the cops Sam's worried about but the outside world knowing about Dean, threatening to take him away. It always makes Sam uncomfortable, the idea of being without his big brother.

The man looks up from the paper, human except for the old, nicotine-yellow eyes and a too friendly smile, teeth showing. He lifts his coffee cup up for a mock salute before taking a sip. Sam gets a bad vibe from the guy, like a quick, physical stab of pain right behind his eyes, but the man's not their number one priority. Let him call the cops, make a claim for the bounty, whatever; he and Dean will be long gone before the cops get there, will maybe track him down to see if Sam's gut was right. Above the counter a clock is ticking as Sam looks away.

An old jukebox stands against the far wall, tucked between racks of cheap memorabilia where time has bitten its teeth into the items, leaving road maps and postcards faded, the plastic of lighters and key chains brittle. Sam digs up a quarter from his pocket, deciding that it's the best way to get Dean's attention. He chooses the most horrible disco tune available and Dean whips his head around, almost stabbing himself in cheek with the pie-laden fork; the piece isn't so lucky and fails to survive the fall. The glob of green key lime pie looks appropriately disgusting smashed on the floor.

On the road, Sam's learned a good number of dirty tricks he can mess Dean's head with. Now that Dean's eyes are on him, wide and _I can't believe you just did that_ shocked from Sam's choice of music, he ups the ante. Sam sways to the music, letting his long limbs loose, making obscene gestures that leave little to imagination. Dean swallows and turns awkwardly back to his pie, clutching his fork tightly, as if he's torn between the pie and trapping Sam's rolling hips with his palms. Sam's smile is victorious as always when he slithers in through the cracks of Dean's personal armor.

Two men in boots, denim, and stubble enter the diner, followed by a rush of evening-cool air and dry smoke. The southern sun could do the men some good, Sam decides, too bad that it's too late for that. Their moves are jerky, like being in motion is something they don't like, their smiles turning lewd when they spot Sam. The leaner one in his twenties approaches him, with a light step of a predator, and the stocky older guy moves towards the counter, completely confident, settles his hide on the stool next to Dean. The yellow-eyed patron that was reading the paper is gone now, and a small sigh of relief escapes Sam, not worrying about collateral damage and eyewitnesses makes the next part easier. And way more fun.

Sam's hips still when the lean guy closes in on him. A quick look at Dean confirms that Dean's on top of things -- isn't the bastard always? -- and so Sam focuses on the smirking man now only few feet away from him. He's wetting his lips with his tongue like he's tasting the air.

"What have we got here? Our very own pretty queen," the lean guy leers.

Sam glares, flickers a look at Dean, starts to move the beat again and grabs the handle of the machete tucked safely in the sheath hanging against his leg. It's not very subtle, a strap around Sam's thigh fixing the tip of the sheath in place, but subtle is so not the point. This is a game of cat and mouse, they all know it, only the newcomers and their waitress friend have yet to understand that they are the mice.

The man steps forward, straight into Sam's personal space, and Sam observes the slicked-back hair and the foul stench radiating from the man. His mind is acutely aware of Dean's location and of the others' as he has his next steps already laid out.

The guy's talking to him again. "Is that a way to treat a gentleman? Being all silent. Or maybe you're just playing coy. C'mon, let me show you princess a good time."

"He's not a princess," Dean words sharply from the counter, his eyes scanning a lone menu now, like he's not worried at all about Sam. But he takes the edge off from his tone with a wide smirk that makes Sam hate him just a little. "Well, actually he is."

Dean's smirk fades as quickly as it appeared; he pops in another bite of key lime and words around it. "But he's my princess. And his name is Sam."

Sam keeps moving to the music, swaying just enough to the beat to keep his hands on his hips, right palm caressing the smooth handle of his machete, left just inches away from his crotch.

The song ends and the guy leers at him. "Don't stop now, princess. I was just getting started."

"Hey, I think he likes you, Hank," hollers the older guy from the counter; Sam can't help himself anymore. Screw Dean and his private pie time, Sam's ready for the other kind of fun already.

Sam feeds the jukebox another quarter and the next song starts. Guitars wail and bass thumps, adrenaline spreads through Sam's veins, his heart beating perfectly in tune with the bass line.

Then Sam attacks, directing all his irritation towards Hank. Sam hits his jaw, taunts the guy by dancing around him; another quick hit on the jaw, on the same exact spot, and the guy is on the offensive. Hank manages to land a jab, hard, well-aimed, and despite the bruising sting in Sam's cheek, he only grins vindictively at the guy. He hooks his left fist to the man's side and drives his knee to the guy's gut, fast. Sam pulls the doubled-over mess of a man back up by his hair and drops his right hand back to his hip, to the soothing grip he palmed before. The sharp steel sings when Sam unsheathes it in a world-embracing arc.

The slightly curved blade of the machete is long and shiny. It glints dangerously in the fluorescent lights before it cuts clean through the man's throat; an unnaturally feeble spray of dark arterial blood splays against the nearest wall. The blade whooshes through the air again, free and restrained by nothing but Sam's hand, and meets little resistance when it severs the spinal cord. The body falls limply to its knees, and the head teeters a second before thumping on the floor and rolling away, leaving a trail of crimson on the scratched floor boards, settling in a corner illuminated by the green light of the jukebox.

Sam turns around and his brother's just sitting there, enjoying his pie, like he's got nowhere to be. The guy next to Dean gets up to defend his friend, shocked at the turn of events, his eyes on Sam as he's going to charge forward. But Dean taps on his shoulder, directs the guy's attention away from Sam.

The guy raises his arm and points furiously at Dean. "You son of a-- "

Then, in a move faster than eye can see, Dean pulls out his Bowie knife that's been tucked against his hip, the blade already tarnished with sticky blood, twirls it around in his hand once.

"Anyone ever tell you it's not polite to point?"

Dean swings his knife upward, splits air and chops off the offending index finger which drops on the guy's shoe. Another move slashes the dude's throat and he lands on the floor, bleeds there, but attempts to get up again.

Sam kicks the guy in the side, less to make sure that he's staying down and more to obey the madness of the excess adrenaline in his system; leaves the kill for Dean.

Dean strips his brown leather jacket, revealing a shoulder holster with his trusty Colt .45 and a long sheath against his spine, the custom job evident in the way it fits between the long muscles of his back. He eyes the guy who's got a hand on his throat as he tries to push himself up.

Suddenly, a screaming blonde woman in an apron runs in from the kitchen, beyond angry, fangs out, ready to put Dean and Sam down for good. But Dean draws his blade, not the full-length katana of the samurai, but shorter and more agile. Swings it wide and re-sheathes it before her body and head even touch the ground. The Bowie still in his left hand.

The bleeding man charges in the new silence, a grunt alerting Sam and his machete. Dean's got his back to them, so Sam takes no risks, drives the blade of the machete into the man. Sam drags the man farther from Dean, the blade coming out red and dripping. He gets ready to swing it when a shadow moves in the corner of his eye.

"Dean, outside."

There's a man standing in front of the windows, looking in at the carnage, face contorted in helpless rage, and Dean shifts his knife to his right hand, aims. It rotates around its center of mass, eats up the distance, dead man's blood coating it like a thick poison. The knife smashes through the window before hitting the man in the chest, blade all the way in.

When they finish and the world falls silent again, there's the dark-haired waitress left, still behind the counter, face contorted in anger. Sam's standing beside Dean, their shoulders leaning against each other. Dark red just this side of black drips down the walls, spray paints the ceiling, the counter, random spatters staining every corner. It's nothing new, nothing they haven't faced in the last three weeks.

"So, you wanna do the honors or should I?" Dean asks.

"Don't know, Dean."

They eye the woman in front of them, the need for revenge cold and painful in her eyes, her survival instinct the only thing keeping her from attacking them.

Sam speaks again, eyes on the woman, before Dean has the chance. "How about I take care of her and you get the guy outside?" He nods in the direction of the smashed window. "And then I'm gonna suck you off while you clean your blades."

"Hell, Sammy. You get off on me or the blades?" Dean smirks, voice suggestive and low.

"Like you didn't know that already."

She's caught, does her best to lash out, fangs drawn out, torn into her lips. But it's too late for her.

Fuck if this isn't one of the perks of the job.

Sam lops her head off while Dean watches, the cut clean and straight. They wave at the bright red blinking light of a security camera behind the counter, no use to hide their faces anymore, and take their exit. The dust still swirls through the dry air, creating small twisters in their wake; Dean pauses long enough to pull out his Bowie from the chest of the guy outside. He uses his _wakizashi_ again, no resistance as the dead man's blood was potent enough.

A promise is a promise and when Dean opens the trunk of the Impala, starts swiping the excess blood of his Bowie and sword on a clean rag, a bottle of holy water at hand, Sam goes to his knees. Paws Dean's jeans open just enough to get his cock out, inhales deep and swallows Dean down.

It won't last long, the image of a smooth and dangerous Dean fresh in Sam's mind, his brother who's never failed to keep him safe. It lasts even less when Dean combs the tip of the newly-cleaned Bowie through Sam's hair, presses the sharp edge against the side of Sam's neck with his right hand. The left one holds Sam's head still as Dean fucks his face.

"Gotta love those vamps, Sammy. Make you always so hot for it," Dean stutter-gasps, comes thick in Sam's mouth, the taste sharp and welcome on Sam's tongue.

When Sam gets up, there's nothing but Dean, sand, and the road before the edge of the world. So simple: two-lane blacktop and not a single crossroads in sight.

* * *

**Then, April 1999, Tombstone, AZ**

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" John bellows, a drink swaying between his thumb and forefinger, not the first shot of the night. Not the last one, either, Sam sighs, if this is one of those worse nights that creep up on them a dozen times a year like wraiths.

Sam stops in the middle of the living room, staring intently at his drunken father. The house they're squatting is falling apart around them, but none of them gives a shit because they're not there to stay anyway. "I'm going out!"

John spots Dean trailing Sam a few steps behind. "With your brother?"

"Yes, Dad. With Dean," Sam spits the words out. He'll never be able to coexist peacefully in the same house with the man who's taken so much from him: his childhood, a chance for a normal life, Dean -- all fell victim to Dad and his obsessions. First the guns and knives, thousands of miles in the car from one corpse to another, then the liquor and name calling.

He'll never be trampled under John's foot again. Maybe they're still living under the same roof -- for reasons he doesn't comprehend beyond _it's where Dean is_ , but he doesn't have to take this shit. Dean doesn't have to take this. And not even Dean can make him shut up this time.

"Dean," John orders, "you'll stay right here."

The glint in John's eyes is dangerous and Sam knows that leer, knows now that this _is_ one of the damned nights when Dad gets piss-ass drunk right there, yells and screams at them. Blames Sam for everything, fists up and in Sam's face until Dean steps in, puts Dad to bed. Comes out later, lips bitten, bruised, with a silent _It's gonna be okay, Sammy_ and lets Sam kiss him gently deep into the night and early morning.

Sam has heard the muffled grunts and cries from Dad's bedroom at odd nights, counting in long years now, knows that Dean doesn't do it voluntarily, can't find a way to say 'no' to their father, can't say 'no' to his family. Won't let Sam say it for him for some reason. Worst is that Sam _knows_ Dean is doing it for him.

But Dean is Sam's, always and only Sam's, to be loved and held, not to be forced into anything. Things are going to change, Sam's going to kick down the status quo.

Dean freezes, shoots an apologetic look at Sam, then blinks and grimaces at the cold emotion in Sam's eyes. "It's okay, Sam. You go, I'll stay in tonight."

"No, you won't," Sam grabs the keys for the Impala from the kitchen table, dangles them innocently from his index finger before tossing them to Dean. It's his big brother, but Sam can't make him choose between love and fear, so he helps and offers support whenever he can. "Dean, wait for me in the car, okay? I need to talk with Dad."

John stands up from his seat, freshly sharpened knife in hand, advancing on Sam who's standing between John and Dean like a mountain. Dean slips out.

"Why can't you be a good boy and obey me like your brother?"

Sam's nostrils flare and his eyes darken, his voice gets louder. "Because I don't need you, Dad. Because Dean is all the family I want. And I won't stand around quietly anymore, watching you mess him up!" Sam replaces the volume with menace and intent. "You touch him one more time and I'm gonna fucking kill you."

 

Somewhere in his ethanol haze John remembers when life was different for them. Evil fucking things he slaughtered with rage and luck more than with skill, his boys picking up his ways, glad to be shooting something, be it cans on a fence or spirits in the depths of night. The flames of Mary's death still burn inside him, hunting only set new fires, the kills left more scars rather than healed old wounds. He glances at Sam, laughs at the danger that's now his own boy, and trades the knife for a bottle.

"You do that, Sam. Any time you're ready, I'm here."

Sam quiets down, sneers in disgust and goes after his brother.

It's easy, familiar, no judgment in the alcohol that numbs the pain after long enough. But his boys are a reminder of the past like a beacon in the dark, treacherous night. Dean remembers Mary and those memories of love and easy life should be John's alone to have. Sammy, he has eyes like his mother's, and he's tainting her gift by being a little bitch that never knows his place, spewing lies about John like Sam's never done anything wrong himself.

Watching Sam slam the door behind him, John says nothing. After a minute he picks up the phone, knocks over his empty shot glass in the process. "Hello? I'd like to report a stolen car..."

Hours later, the police call, informing John that they found the Impala, asking him if he wants to press charges against his own sons. John explains with sincere gruff, "Oh, Sam was innocent in this. Dean's the one who forced him to go along. Some jail time will do that little trouble maker good."

And Dean never says a word in his own defense. Exactly like John figured, his boy trying to be good so that John's got no reason to lay a finger on Sam. Sam seethes, day in and day out, obviously ordered into silence by Dean, and John chuckles, savoring the victory.

Grand theft auto, two years, comes Dean's sentence. John'll be without Dean for two years, that lean body that opens up for him just to keep him away from Sam. But at least he doesn't have to watch Sam try to pull Dean away from him. The boys are loyal to each other, something John can respect, maybe he'd even be proud of them a little if Sam weren't the reason Mary's gone, nothing but ashes and bones spread in Sam's nursery fifteen years ago.

 

\---

 

**Then, May 1999, Bisbee, AZ**

The motel door weighs nothing when Sam swings it open, lets it hit the cheap paneled wall with enough force to make the dent behind it crack open. He has joy in his step and payback in his mind. Dean watches proud, knows he put them there, knows that it's time for them to finally leave.

"Hi, Dad," Sam croons sweetly to the dark figure of a man slumped on the sofa.

"Sam," John gruffs in warning.

Not bothering to close the door, Dean steps out of Sam's shadow. His eyes fall on the old, broken man, hatred tickling his veins, sense of freedom and victory surging even stronger. Dean pulls to his full height and smirks.

"What the hell are you doing here?" John yells. "You're supposed to be in jail."

Dean grins, steps to Sam's side, running his hand possessively down Sam's back. "I got out. What's a few locks against a Winchester?"

In a feeble attempt to get up, John sways on his feet for a moment, braces himself quickly against the coffee table littered with empty bottles, knives and a bloodied whetstone. His eyes narrow to slits and anger radiates through the alcohol-induced haze. His index finger is stuck in mid-air to make a point that never gets made.

"Don't worry, Dad," Sam lilts, "we're not gonna stay. Just have something to show you. It's been right in front of you for years, but you've always been too blind to see it."

Dean grabs fistfuls of Sam's jacket, pulls him tight against himself, crushing their lips together. It's sloppy and needy; Dean's left hand rises to grab Sam's neck and his right drops to Sam's ass, a near mirror image of Sam's pose. They groan in each other's mouths, grind their hips together and feel the warmth of every good thing in the world.

After a sweet-long moment, their instincts tell them to step apart, survey the situation, assess the damage. John still stands in front of the tv set, mouth gaping open in slowly registering hate. Dean grins at John and so does Sam, Dean's hand still on his ass.

John screams. "You dare disrespect me like this? I raised you and this is the thanks I get? Dean, you get upstairs now, and Sam you fuckin' leave and don't you ever come back!"

Dean's courage falters a little before anger finally flows in fully, pushes out the mischievous smirk; it ripples around the room, forces Sam to step back, but Dean makes his eyes stay on Dad.

"No, Dad. _We_ are leaving. We don't need you anymore, haven't for a long damn time," Dean says, tone cool and steady, untamed.

John blinks. "I'm gonna show you, boy! I'm gonna give you both what you fuckin' deserve!"

John's fingers fumble with his belt buckle. Sam glances worriedly at Dean, but Dean reassures him with a smile, open and honest. "We're fate, Sammy. Like you said."

Dean's not a big believer in pre-set destiny, but _this_ feels right. He steps in front of Sam.

His shoulders are loose and stance easy, the looming self-taught by too many fights in bars and prison. He knows he will win. John grabs a knife from the table, the biggest Bowie they have, before lunging towards Dean.

It's beyond elegant how Dean simply turns the knife in John's hand and feels every one of those ten inches bite into soft tissue. There's blood -- red as only life can be -- a small gasp, a gurgle and then nothing but a limp body in the arms of gravity, belt buckle clanking heavily against the floor. Dean turns, walks out and never looks back.

* * *

**Now, June 2003**

The sky is painted blue, streaked and puffed with white when Dean stops and pulls the Impala over on a bridge. Sam's not sure where they are exactly, but they're heading west and it's their road so it's all good. Open plains surround them, give life to the toughest desert plants and weave dusty spells over them. Dean turns the engine off, stopping the vibration in Sam's bones, then nods towards Sam's open window.

There's another rumble, faint, less predatory than the Impala's low growl, but close enough. The steel railing gleams gold and silver in the daylight, and the softly echoing sound of rushing water lures Sam out of the car.

The horizon licks the endless plains as he looks down over the railing into the canyon. A river runs at the bottom, far away, more soft gold glinting amidst the blue; he wants to reach his hand in, rush it through the rapids and lap off the drops. Dean hovers behind him, fits himself against Sam's left side, snaking his right arm around Sam's waist, settling his palm over the sharp cut of Sam's hip bone, taking in the world with him.

"That river's like you," whispers Dean, sending a rush of hot air over Sam's neck. "Free."

The words wrap around Sam, winding in warm, possessive coils, and Sam wants to drown Dean in the same flood of want. "I'm not free like the river, Dean. I'm free like you."

There's a flash in Dean's eyes, old pain and regret and guilt. Sam decides that those emotions don't belong there. His left hand dips into his pocket and his fingers curl around a butterfly knife, pulls it out. It dances open with dangerous grace, holding Dean's attention. Dean's arm around Sam tenses as his palm fists Sam's t-shirt, but Dean doesn't pull away even an inch.

"Gimme your hand, Dean," Sam requests, and it really is everything but an order.

The slow, voluntary movement of Dean's left palm is beautiful, graceful, and the naked trust in his eyes almost makes Sam cry. This is them, asking, giving, trusting, wanting, loving. Sam turns Dean's left palm up, lets the sharp double-edged blade rest flat against it. The crickets sing as he twines his right hand with Dean's left, the Damascus steel caught in between.

"I want to be yours, Dean," Sam whispers into his brothers ear, kissing the freckles there. "Then I'll be free like the river. I'm gonna always run in you."

Sam loosens his grip, turns the knife sideways and lets it dig shallow into the skin of their palms. "Can I, Dean? Please."

The emerald-green in Dean's eyes reflects the world of light around them, much brighter than everything else put together; creates an illusion of radiance Sam's never seen before, and he lets that bright green become his favorite color.

"Yeah, Sammy. Yeah," Dean sighs.

Sam beams and pulls the knife slowly down until he feels it cutting his skin. The rest of the way the blade flies, leaving no pain behind. Crimson bleeds from between their palms, blood and spirit mixing, creating a home for the heart and soul.

Dean lifts their twined hands over the railing, leading the trail of drops over it and into the river far below. The world reduces to a mesh of open space as their warm blood claims the river as theirs.

For the longest time it's silent; their palms pulse, slick with blood. Dean shakes himself awake first, untangles his fingers and wipes the palm casually on his white t-shirt.

"We got the road to hell in front of us," Dean says casually. He kisses Sam, then rests his forehead against Sam's while the tingling in Sam's lips dies down.

Sam knows exactly what Dean means. Hunting isn't going to get any easier with media attention, but they're not going to hide it out, either. One week's left of this tour; the dates of their plan, the research, have held fast so far, but it only takes one mistake to have the giant, month-long hunt to blow up in their faces.

 

\---

 

Jo Gale stares down at a miniature color tv screen. The voice is muted, but she knows what her tv reporter self is saying. For a moment, she lets her thoughts wander to the Winchester brothers, the next big thing in serial killing -- her ticket out of the small networks and into the world of true power and influence.

Most of the time the execs dictate what they want to see, won't let her use the research she actually likes doing, and she seethes but gives them what they want so that her name will have the time to get known. But sometimes, she makes a fuss over the experience she garnered while just rolling with it so that the execs have to listen to her. And she's going to put her foot down here, to be the one who cracks the puzzle that is the Winchesters.

She thinks that the close-up of her girl-next-door image is perfect for the show's intro - an innocent little girl talking about psychopathic serial killers. For the mothers she has a sob story of a smart child neglected by her crazy parents, pushed into foster care. For the fathers she's a hot young blonde. Something for everyone. Lure them in with the sweetness and go for the kill with the smartness and ambition.

She tugs down the hem of her jacket, ready to show the world that Jo Gale isn't afraid of anything. Be it serial killers, network executives or the world, she's going to show them what she'll never back down from a fight.

"But the cops aren't giving us the original footage!" her editor moans. "We have only the staged stuff. There's no drama!"

Jo turns her head sharply like a hawk who's gotten wind of its prey. "We don't need it. Just start it with me and repeat me saying 'Live with Jo Gale'. Repetition works."

The questioning look of the editor isn't entirely new to her, but she has rarely been this enthusiastic with the process; now the anticipation is tingling in her body, like a steady current in her veins. "No one will remember if they've seen the real thing or not. Just build it up to the interviews and make it dramatic."

The familiar theme of 'American Maniacs' rushes from the speakers and the picture is now spread on the dozen screens covering the editing room wall. This is it. The world won't know what hit them.

She mouths along with the words, "They tore through the countryside with their vengeance right out of the Bible. Highway six-six-six, a candy lane of murder and mayhem.-- "

Yeah, that should finally make her name, she thinks and exits the small studio, smiling all the way to her car. The only thing she needs to do is to wait for the cops to trap the Winchester brothers, then she's going to have a way to the top.

 

\---

 

"Hey, Dean. Did you notice that there isn't a cop in sight?" Sam asks, turning his head left and right at a crossroads in a new town, dusk still a few hours away. The names don't carry a meaning for them anymore, just the roads in and out, the occasional diners and motels.

Dean realizes it's been awhile since he's seen a glimpse of the uniforms that represent a lonely month and lost freedom for him. But the cops are there, even if lagging behind: trailing after them, hunting them, showing no mercy.

"Really? Huh, they're making it awfully easy for us to do our thing."

Sam lays his head in Dean's lap, angles his cheek against the denim, presses his mouth against Dean's soft cock, breathes warm air through the fabric. Dean's calloused palm comes up reflexively, runs fingers through the wind-blown tangles of his hair. "Dean, do you think that there's such a thing as copless town?"

"Don't know, Sammy," Dean glances down at his brother, whose long body is twisted awkwardly on the front seat but rested and relaxed, mouth still nuzzling Dean's cock, and smiles. "But if there is, it's called Paradise."

Dean spots a motel, takes a left off the road and to the parking lot. Fuck mercy, they don't want it anyway.

It's another easy routine of theirs, a motel room like the hundreds before it, food and sex, or Dean's favorite: burgers served on Sam's naked chest and stomach _while_ having sex. Hustling pool or poker afterwards, when they still smell of each other, traces and residue clinging to skin in places no one else can see.

By nightfall Dean has licked Sam's chest clean of the salt from sweat and fries; Sam has been buried inside his brother balls and tongue deep. They don't shower yet, just run water and towels over their faces, proud over the brands that have been left below the neckline. When they head out, the feeling's just right.

There's a bar like this in every town out here: low ceiling and scuffed tables, history etched on the walls and air. The tap has always had the poison it has now and the bartender knows everyone by their tabs and usual vices. In places like these, nothing ever changes, and in places like these, they can forget the outside world for a while.

Dean prefers pool to poker, the smooth, forest-green cloth covering the table, balls cool to the touch, the sleek wooden cue sliding against his knuckles when lining up. There's rhyme and reason to each shot, each deflection, each 'clink' the balls make, laws of nature at work. It's familiar, and he's got it down to art. Goddamn Zen at his fingertips.

He's bent over the table when the weight of Sam's stare lands on his back, slides down from his neck, over and over. So if the hem of Dean's leather jacket rides higher than necessary, he doesn't yank it back down, just lets Sammy's gaze wash over him, lets him see the bruises he has left on Dean's hips. Sam's sitting at the table, gone quiet again, one of those emo funks he wallows in sometimes, and Dean doesn't know what else to do except to be there, make everyone see what only Sam can have.

There's a few hundred bucks to be made if Dean plays his proverbial cards right, slow and steady, a decent take for a single night. It'll keep his baby running, feed their bellies as well, maybe enough to cover most of the set of throwing knives Sammy's been hankering for. The crowd's still trying figure if they should bet on or against him, and he lets the cue slip a little to make it look like he's counting on Lady Luck.

 

The tanned skin of Dean's back draws fans around the pool table. A wide strip of his muscles show where they're supposed to be covered by white cotton, black elastic exposed in places where there should be hard a brown leather belt on blue denim. Dean's eyes dart around the crowd, he drinks in the attention like a desert plant soaks in water after a flooding rain.

Sam nurses a beer in a corner table, sees how Dean fits this place, how Dean could put down fucking _roots_ in a town like this and everyone would welcome him with open arms. The admiration Dean gets makes him more than Sam's brother, lover; it grounds him, shapes him into a man who can take take take and never give in return. A man different from the one he was with his fucked up family -- the cover of a book, not the glue.

Dean's like a fish in water, so comfortable in his skin that Sam lets Dean have the looks he's deserved, the _I'd let you fuck me right here, right now_ smiles from women and men alike. But Sam's jealousy is a spit-fire snake, heading from his heart to his white-knuckled fist. When a woman with orange hair sidles up real close to Dean, the snake rattles and Sam clears out.

The back alley is evidence of the bar's history, less smoky but coated with leftovers from human life. There are all shades of gray present in the dark, sliding from right to wrong like a heavy pendulum. The air is dry and pungent in Sam's lungs, burns holes through him, corrodes his insides along with the snake's venom.

The door creaks open behind him, then slides shut, offering a touch of Dean's warm presence for a second, but taking it away from him again with the click of the latch. Sam turns, but only an unfamiliar face greets him with a nervous shrug. The alley suddenly smells of the stranger wrapped in denim and plaid; Sam thinks this could be Dean in another life, another time, where Dad was different. Still, what-ifs and could've beens don't make this man anything but a poor imitation of his Dean, only a bad line served with a faint smile.

"Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?"

However, the whiskey-rough, honey-smooth purr is close enough to what Sam wants, calming in the darkness, and the man becomes Dean in the deep recesses of Sam's mind. He _needs_ Dean to be there, not prancing before his fan club. The man's smile is just a little off, more razor sharp shark teeth than Dean's genuine affection; the eyes only two shades from the real green-goldens.

"Maybe we met in another life," Sam sends him an invitation, hunches down and in, smiles like a shy kid.

The man smiles, steps closer, spreads blood to the wrong places inside Sam. Air molecules line up over Sam's skin, an icy-blue trail, draw shivers out of him, and Sam doesn't fight the hands on his waist, his belt.

"Yeah, baby. Gonna make you feel so good."

The stranger gets on his knees on the grime and dirt, and it gets Sam half-hard. He pictures the green, ethereal shine of Dean's eyes, the red-pink of his lips and the way they smooth over his teeth in a smile.

Plaid-shirt swallows Sam down, sucking and stroking in the glow of the street lights. Sam slumps against the wall, guiding the mouth on him with his hands. Saliva mixes messily with hot precome, hands braced on hips, on the wall. Sam looks up where no stars are visible, and down where nothing is right. Time slows to stuttering ticks and a car drives by under the orange lights.

He doesn't belong in that mouth. Everything's wrong.

"Stop," Sam says, but the bobbing motion goes on. "Stop!"

Hands seek purchase on his hips, and Sam shoves the guy away by his shoulders.

"Fucking bitch! What the hell's your problem?" the man curses while getting up, spits, and plants his feet on the gritty asphalt. Black, dead eyes lift up and stare back at Sam. Slowly, an ugly smirk forms on the man's lips.

It's not even Sam's second nature to punch the man, he grew up with the thrill of fight in him, limbs faster than his conscious thought when it comes to survival. A second later, familiar Latin flows over his tongue. "Exorcizamus te--"

The demon throws Sam against the wall, right where he was just a moment before, squeezing the air out of his lungs. A pause before Sam gulps down more. The thing's maniacal laugh doesn't deter Sam; he bites out more words, spits them at the demon.

"You're pathetic, Sam Winchester. Wanting big brother's cock all to yourself and unable to keep your own in your pants," it laughs. "Soon you're gonna fit right in with us, don't even need to be taught how to make people suffer."

The accusation hurts, the worst of it is that the thing has it right. This never should've happened, thinks Sam, continues the exorcism until the laughter turns into a scream.

Black smoke spills out of the host's mouth, gathers up and dissipates into a sudden gust of wind. Bright sodium-yellow light spills over the man's still body, dead, over Sam when he runs back to the motel room, cock half-way tucked back into his jeans. The low sky traps him in with his guilt.

Dean -- nothing else. There should be nothing else.

It takes ten minutes for Dean to appear, a wad of cash in his hands, bright satisfaction in his eyes when he sees Sam sitting on the bed, smile almost predatory, tongue already licking his lips. Sam feels unworthy, brittle under his skin, ready to shatter if Dean guesses what Sam has done. It's easier to put on the jealous face than let Dean close enough to inspect what a failure his brother really is.

Sam clenches his jaws together so hard his teeth hurt, takes a sharp breath in. "We're leaving. Now."

"Why?" Dean folds the bills, shoves them in his pocket.

"Met a demon, left a body." Sam doesn't elaborate; Dean doesn't ask.

They pack their shit fast, and Sam resolves to be better, doesn't want have anything in common with demons even though he doesn't know if the demon was taunting him or threatening him with its words about the future.

 

\---

 

Special Agent Victor Henriksen stares at the rusty-red pool of blood in the dime-a-dozen alleyway. He was lured in by the eye-witness account about last night's events, about a tall man speaking a dead language at a dead man. It had been the Winchesters, the fucking brothers that kill and execute everything in their way: leaving a trail of bodies mutilated, shot with goddamn silver bullets and stabbed, some skinned and decapitated. This guy -- the victim -- had encountered one of the monsters from hell, called Sam Winchester, and the silent internal bleeding to death was somehow more humane than most of them had gotten.

Henriksen pictures the scene, likes how images flood his brain: Sam maybe on his knees, the obedient little brother always doing what he's told. Maybe. Then he pictures the younger Winchester again, now leaning against the wall, bricks scraping the skin of his shoulders while getting his dick sucked. _Yes._ Henriksen fantasizes about Sam pushing him down and just taking him -- his mouth waters at the prospect.

Maybe Sam Winchester is a freaky psycho killer, but he's one fucking hot psycho with those overgrown paws that could spread Henriksen wide open and make him beg for it like a prison bitch, make him connect with his inner crazy. And then he could show Sam what crazy really looks like.

"Agent Henriksen?"

A local police officer with a wide-brimmed hat and a gut that's indicative of years of bad cholesterol pulls Victor from under Sam's spell, getting a distracted 'hmh?' for his troubles. The yeehawing local police had been reduced to directing traffic for Victor and his team, and he can't think of a reason why one of them would talk to him.

The man has a book in his hands, familiar black typeface on white, and asks cautiously, "Could you sign this for me? Me an' my wife-- we're big fans of your work."

This is a question Victor knows, he's always generous with the adoring crowd so he turns from the scene -- from the imaginary one in his mind and the crime one in the alley -- and smiles a cocky smile. "Of course."

The officer mutters their names awkwardly, hope and awe in his eyes. Victor signs 'Agent Henriksen' with strong blocks on the title page of 'Henriksen On Henriksen', hands the book back as he tells the man to keep up the good work. His book details the man hunt for the serial killer who murdered Victor's mother, leaving unmentioned how Victor got his revenge by abusing the flesh of the murderer for days before turning the man in and being hailed as a hero.

He'll write another book when the Winchester brothers have answered for their crimes, first to him, then to God and the country.

"I hope you catch these bastards." The officer lifts his hand to the brim of his hat and nods a goodbye that Henriksen misses because his attention is back on the mess and organized chaos of people. His team is working the alley meticulously when a stain on the wall near Victor draws his attention; the blue shine under the blacklight gets him to wonder what Sam tastes like.

"Yeah, I will," he mutters to himself, running his fingertips over his hungry lips, pink tongue following in a quick lick.

 

\---

 

Highway 666 has changed to one of the quieter roads south of I-40 in Arizona during the morning, clearly the road to Sam's personal hell. The snake of jealousy continues to squirm in his chest, only renamed as 'guilt', and worse still when Dean explains what last night was about. _Just for show, Sammy. I'd never-- You fucking_ know _that!_

Sam had seen the happy swagger in those bowlegs when Dean had returned to their room, and it hurts to know that he could take it away, turn the confident stride into a heavy step with no purpose. He blames John for making Dean like this, putting Sam on the axis of Dean's world when he's not worth it; and for every fucking other thing, not Dean for showing off on a meaningless night.

The miles aren't going much faster than before but a body in the last town says they can't afford an extra moment to settle their squabble. Cops have trailed them for a long time now -- to stop would be to invite them in. Not that they fear the law, but this thing here, between _them_ , is all they have, and this thing here doesn't belong behind bars.

They're fate, so they can ride in an awkward silence for a while as Sam squares his shoulders and promises himself to never let Dean down again.

The Impala stalls in the middle of scorched nowhere in the afternoon of that unsuspecting day, a long run from the bar, stops made only for food and relief. The latter came to Sam the best after going on his knees for Dean on the roadside dirt, taking in Dean's soft cock, making every lick of his tongue and desperate swallow of his filled throat a silent apology. The Impala had kept Dean upright, cradled his palms on the sun-kissed roof, Sam held snug between the hot metal and Dean's warm skin.

They pull over to the shoulder, Dean pops the hood, doesn't care that the engine's too hot to touch. Ignores Sam when he reminds Dean that there's little they can do for her.

Sam understands, the sleek-framed car is a home to them both. Coated by layers of yellow dust, Sam watches how the black heavymetal beast camouflages to the side of the road. Dean won't just give up on her.

It takes several minutes, a steady string of curses, occasional hissing and banging around, until Dean emerges from underneath the hood. Lips pressed thin, Dean looks more lost than ever before. And pissed.

"Sonofabitch!" 

Dean's worn t-shirt is stained with sweat and engine grease, and he's rubbing his fingertips together, smelling them and flinching quickly away. He lifts his palm up for Sam to see, more grease and yellow dust caking his fingers. "It's sulfur, Sam. Demons."

_No._ The sweat stuck to Sam's skin turns cold, deep shivers run down his back. First thing he takes a good look around: it's quiet and empty around the car, them, no threats in sight. So this could be Sam's fault somehow, a farewell gift from the demon in the alley, maybe even a reminder of how he always hurts Dean. But Sam's not sure. He frowns, tries not to look so damn guilty. "You think the demon last night did this?"

"With demons who know what's possible?" Dean looks at his hands again, wipes them on his jeans, closes the hood.

"Can you fix it?"

"Not here." Dean surveys the desert blacktop, deep in thought. He practically stomps his foot in frustration. "Fucking hell!"

Sam hates himself for he's about to say, the betrayal Dean's going to see in them. He does make Dean suffer. "We can't stay, Dean."

"What?" Dean asks, low and angry. "I'm not leaving my baby behind."

"Dean, we have no choice. The cops are after us for serious and they'll find us if we don't leave the car." Sam tries to keep his tone down, lets it roll over the sharp bumps of new panic but he fails.

Dean mutters a string of curses, paces the length of the Impala. After he settles down again, Sam catches him running his hand against the burning metal skin in a gentle caress. The Impala's side reflects the horizon and Dean's palm paints a long line from the hood to the trunk, a trail across the sky; Sam hates it feels like it's a goodbye, hates that he'll be the only thing Dean lets himself trust and love, when he can't even be worthy of that precious trust.

The guilt catches up with Sam again, reminds him of what he promised himself, how he decided to be worthy of Dean. He walks over to Dean, pulls his brother against him, hands soft on Dean's neck and side.

The rays of the sun catch Dean's eyes again, filter through the green, and Sam can't allow himself to betray Dean's love. Not the soft golden world where they float together. He rubs his palm against Dean's side, leans down to kiss a smile back to Dean's lips.

After minutes of breathing each other, accepting each other's apologies, they step back, Dean glancing at the slowly lengthening shadows. "We gotta pack light."

Sam nods, lets Dean be the big brother, the provider, the corner without which their carefully stacked house of cards falls. Some guns and ammo, some clothes, some provisions -- all shared equally between two duffel bags. The meaningful part of their life has always been packed carefully in the trunk of the Impala as if the breath of life itself was in those chunks of metal, leather, and fabric, and now they're leaving most of it behind.

They pick a direction from the map and hike on. The freezing silence has turned to companionable, as they tread a never-walked path over the low hills to the open plains.

 

\---

 

The pastel blue-pink sky cradles small blood-red clouds when the last remnants of the sun linger above the horizon. Wind has robbed their throats of moisture and grains of sand grind between their teeth; water is only a distant memory when even fake oases are gone for the day.

After hours of walking, the heat has dissipated into the clear moon-lit sky, not offering a drop of water to ease their breathing. Even the night knows to tiptoe around them and not push its luck with the Winchesters, the pale yellow-blue boulders and tall saguaro forests refusing to slide into complete blackness. The plains have turned rockier, hills blocking their view of where the stars are leading them.

Sam digs into his duffel, only an empty water bottle as the result. "Dean?" he croaks quietly.

"Sorry, Sammy, I'm fresh out." The rasp is evident is Dean's voice, pushing the last syllables into a rough whisper, still not as painful as knowing how tired Sam is.

Sam drags his boots against the ground, too exhausted to even lift them in proper steps. Dean stops abruptly in front of a flat, knee-high boulder, guides Sammy to sag down on it. His rest will come after Sam feels better.

The first knife he picks from his duffel has a six-inch blade, and Dean nods minutely his approval. The nearest cactus towers behind the rock and Dean carves into it, baring the soft tissue inside the arm-thick saguaro branch. Whitish fluid leaks from the cut, so Dean makes a smaller cut in a 'v' shape, forcing the cactus juice to flow into the empty bottle he presses against the trunk.

After their bottles are filled, he takes a quick swig of the liquid, and acid burns bitter in his mouth. He fights to swallow, feels defeat in every drop trickling down his throat, but it does bring saliva to his tongue. Dean takes a long pull to stop himself from tasting, then chases the acrid aftertaste with the beef jerky he packed in his duffel.

"It's not Jose or chocolate milk, but under the circumstances..." Dean lets the silence float the rest of the words away. Sam's head hangs low between his shoulders, elbows braced against his knees in resignation. His strong little brother who never gives up on Dean or them.

Dean holds out the other bottle, not knowing what to do. It has always been Sammy telling him that everything would be okay, not the other way round. "Just take it, Sam. Please."

Sam's shoulders jerk a little before he straightens his back and faces Dean with sad eyes. "It's m' fault. I-- I let it happen. I let everything happen."

The words reveal a lifetime of guilt; all layers of resolve, confidence and happiness stripped away, leaving behind every hurtful thing they've never discussed. Dean wonders how Sam broke now, so quickly, so silently, on a night that's like any other; and if he means Dad, the empty gas tank or whatever happened outside that last bar but it doesn't matter. It has never mattered, because Sam is there with him.

Dean waves the bottle a little, makes Sam catch it with his right hand. Dean can still see the fresh pink scar stretching across his palm and he crouches on his knees in front of Sam, palms comforting Sam's shaking shoulders. "It's not your fault, Sam. It never was."

Sam's gaze is hesitant, careful, as if he's a little boy hunched in on himself, hoping the world doesn't touch him, afraid of the change from chasing to being chased. Dean sees how the pieces finally fall together: the brother who has always pushed and pulled him to take charge, let Dean have the upper hand and control and then wrapped himself in Dean's love and protection. He's forgotten that Sam's still the younger one, four years less time to discover the ugliness of the world.

He does what Sam deserves: forgives and loves.

"Sam, what does this mean?" Dean brings his left palm up so Sam can see it in the low light. Then he grabs Sam's left wrist, traces a reluctant finger over the puckering flesh.

Sam knits his brows together, tired, eyes drifting unfocused from Dean to his palm. "Fate."

A small smile forms on Dean's lips. "And what are we?"

"Fate." The word holds a flutter more confidence.

Dean gently sets Sam's hand down, trading it for the knife he set down on the slab of stone. With his eyes on Sam, Dean traces the scar tissue on his own palm, breaking the skin with the tip of the blade, forcing dark liquid slowly out. Sam doesn't fight when Dean takes his hand and does the same. "No matter what."

The spark is back in Sam's eyes, growing back to full brightness when skin meets skin and their blood mixes again; now promising them forever when it first was only a new beginning. Dean sees the layers again enveloping the core of what is Sam, setting in place, but this time Dean's not a labeled space -- _Here be Dean_ \-- inside Sam, he _is_ inside his brother, a piece of his soul poured in and sealed tight.

 

\----

 

Hours later, a wave of nausea hits Sam when Dean drags him forward. It begins with cold sweat when the sun peeks from the horizon, droplets gathering on his skin in competition with the new rays blooming in the sky. Half of the orange-yellow disk is visible when he feels the bile rise -- he lets the sun burn his eyes as the acidic liquid sears his throat. He empties his stomach next to a small rock that's shaped like the Impala.

Dean's baby.

Sam lifts the stone, slowly cups it reverently in his palm, running his index finger reverently over it, leaving a bloody trail of his goodbyes painted on its side. The colors are all wrong, but it's _home_. The better home, the only home.

Light glitters from her side like it used to when the clean, black metal shone in the hosed rain. When Dean was younger and washing and waxing her was a punishment for mouthing off and that made Dean slip out words he would've bitten off otherwise. If he looks close enough, he can see Dean in the driver's seat, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. The mini-Dean smiles, looks over to mini-Sam on the passenger's side, and Sam laughs brightly as they walk.

"Sam, put the rock down."

Dean doesn't sound angry, so he talks back. Dean always lets him talk back, not like Dad. "No."

"Sam." Dean still isn't angry. And Dad's dead.

"But it's us. You washed her and we're happy. We should always be happy." Sam stills at the thought that what if Dean doesn't want them to be happy. He looks at the rock-car, mini-them and the re-opened squiggly scar on his palm. It smiles at him, too. "Fate's smiling at us, Dean."

 

Dean watches Sam's open smile turn to a frown and then to smile again when Sam pokes at the rock and his palm, looking impossibly young. Naked fear rolls cold in Dean's stomach, worsening his own nausea. The cactus water. Dehydration. Fever. Hallucinations. He did this to his brother. Dragged him out here, into a world full of dangers and not a moment of normal.

Tears hang on the edge of Dean's vision as he searches the landscape for answers. Farther away, the hills give way to the plains, once again offering them the world. And maybe they can still have it. Dean blinks, then squints against the sun. An oasis in the form of a lonely building floats in the warped distance, hovering above the warming ground.

Another minute and the house is still there. Maybe it _is_ real.

Dean steps in front of Sam, cups his shoulders, knowing that his still bleeding palm will leave small spots of crimson on Sam's jacket. "You're right, Sam. Fate is smiling at us. We're gonna be okay." He tips Sam's head toward him, their foreheads touching. "You an' me, Sam. We're gonna be okay."

 

\---

 

The door is old, its dried wooden frame splinters easily when Dean kicks it in. It's a small roadside pit stop, looking exactly like he pictured 'Harvelle's Roadhouse' -- the big sign outside tired to fight against the elements, the light bulbs around the name dark in the rising day.

Dean wrestles Sam's limp body inside, leaves him to sit against the door frame, then dashes across the floor, skirting behind the bar before darting back with bottles of water and a bowl of pretzels.

"Open up, Sammy. It's water." Dean tilts Sam's head back, lets water from one of the bottles spill everywhere until Sam's dry lips are ready to part without cracking. Sam's feeble swallow is followed by a second and a third until Sam reaches for the water bottle.

Dean sits next to his brother, draining a bottle himself, and breathes deep. There's no one here yet, all the better for gaining back their strength before nightfall, before the business picks up again, before they get back in the game.

Minutes go by, no sounds audible beyond their ragged breathing. Sam throws the now empty bottle to the floor where it bounces twice with a hollow clatter, and Dean opens another one for him.

With eyes less feverish but still haunted by images that don't belong, Sam blinks at Dean, then accepts the bottle, slippery with condensation. Dean reaches for the bowl of snacks and dumps a handful in his mouth, the salt a welcome sting on his cracked lips.

"Better eat your pretzels, man."

Sam laughs weakly, and Dean joins him.

 

\---

 

"Ease up, Bobby. It's just the Winchester boys."

"They say there's demon in their blood, Ellen. And their daddy... We can't let them stay."

"Now you listen to me, Bobby. They might be wanted men, but they're one of us. John had his sins, it ain't their fault."

"They killed him. Simple as that."

"You know as well as I do that they had the right. The older one especially."

"They're not right in the head!"

"And we are?"

Ellen cracks the kitchen door open again, looking at the two men, brothers, and how their bodies softly lean towards each other, not touching but close enough to make sure that they aren't alone even in their sleep. Nothing demonic about that.

She had that kind of love once, lost it when the system took her little girl from her, lost the rest when Bill died on a hunt. Only things she has left are a bar and a dear friend, and now she'll do her best to help the Winchester boys, because that's all she can do to help the two lost little boys she hasn't seen in over ten years.

 

\---

 

Before Dean feels like standing up again, Sam's breaths have evened out to smooth inhales and soft, snuffling exhales. They fill Dean's world except for one dark corner where Dean senses that even now they're not alone. Still, he leans against the wall, confidently straightens out his legs, crosses them at the ankles and breathes out. His eyelids shutter, weighing with the guilt of pulling Sam into this world, now having the law after them; too close, too fucking _close_ to his skin.

They've had a good run, he and Sam, five years of hunting things their way, saving people, but he's not sure if it's worth getting caught. They'd lose nothing else if they went deep, not each other, not their freedom, but even at its best it'd be a weird half-life for both of them. Too much of their life is about getting back at the monsters and nightmares, Mom's killer, to stop it altogether.

Dean sighs, pulls out his ivory-handled Colt .45 from his waistband, lets it rest in a loose grip in his lap, ready to protect. It's his favorite gun, coming with no bad, John-infested memories but only the voice of a barely teenaged Sammy informing him that he picked the weapon for Dean himself. It was the last birthday Dean can remember celebrating, and the next day when John had passed out on the couch again, Sam quietly whispered that he hadn't let Dad touch the gun at all. Dean's fingers tighten around the handle, fit against the sense memory of Sam's young hand.

Later, minutes or hours, the floorboards creak and only confirm the feeling Dean's veins have been thrumming with. He levels his gun first, bracing it against his left palm and points it in the direction of the sound. Opens his eyes. The engraved barrel is aimed straight at a woman holding a shotgun, a brunette in her forties, eyes almost twinkling and mouth curved in an amused smile. Her gun isn't Dean's biggest problem nor is it her odd mirth: it's the gruff, older guy wearing a trucker cap next to her. No mirth and a goddamn Desert Eagle directed at a still sleeping Sam.

Dean slaps Sam on the thigh quickly with his left hand, hearing the startle in Sam's sleepy voice, then gets gracefully to his feet, sights on the pair. His eyes flicker over the couple, take in the way they obviously know how to hold their weapons. He stubbornly targets the guy with his cannon of a handgun, ignores the shotgun pointed at him because buckshots his armor of leather can take. Dean knows his brother is going for his Taurus laying on the floor in the shadow of Sam's duffel, but the guy is perceptive and nudges his weapon a little, prevents Sam's wandering hand from ever reaching the pearl-handled beauty of a gun.

Dean shares a knowing look with Sam, not fear, before he turns it on the others, finally ones worthy of his time -- wolves staring at wolves. The weapons are loaded and cocked, pin-strike away from bringing pain and death; Dean's safety was already turned off for life when he stepped out of a burning house with baby Sammy in his arms.

They're locked in their uneven stand-off, apprehensively eyeing each other, and Dean guesses that he's not going to have enough time to re-aim at the woman after he drops the guy and before she pulls the trigger, but it's the only way to go. He's inching along the wall to draw the bead of the shotgun further away from Sam, but after a foot the woman lowers the shotgun and shoots a disarming smile instead.

"Hi, Dean. I'm Ellen." Her voice is strong but friendly and she offers her right hand to Dean. He doesn't take it, but she still smiles and uses it to drag the guy's gun down. "Quit messing with the kid, Bobby. You know you ain't gonna shoot him anyway."

The guy, Bobby, grunts and it's not the usual fear of evil or violence that they're used to, so Dean looks at now-armed Sammy, raising his eyebrow in a question _What now?_ Sam's answer is to cock his head slightly to the right and raise his brows quickly, _No idea._

They have the upper hand now, something Dean knows how to use, and he relaxes slightly, lets his smirk turn to a slight leer when looking at the woman again. "What? You know us? You fans of ours or something?"

Bobby grunts again, ignores Dean, the Desert Eagle twitching at his side. "Look, the cops are looking for you boys, so you can't stay here for long, but we'll feed you and get you on the move again."

Dean's trigger finger falters from the exasperated honesty, food being too much of a temptation, and Sam's tired, strained posture is the final word. Bobby and Ellen look lively -- not too lively -- and comfortable in their own skin, so Dean brings his Colt down, feeling better about his decision when Sam sags heavily down against the wall.

"You got gas?"

"Better still. We've got a car." Ellen's casual smirk is knowing, familiar.

Dean looks at them both, tucking his gun in the waistband of his jeans, coolness of the metal grounding him -- the alpha male of the pack now. "It better not be a fuckin' minivan." He flashes a smile and the couple relaxes.

Sam coughs a short laughter from Dean's left side.

 

"How about we make you boys some burgers?" Ellen asks conversationally, stepping behind the counter, the shotgun discarded in plain sight. Bobby lays his gun right beside it after she squints at him.

The boys eye each other curiously, saying nothing, but Ellen sees the conversation flow between them. The words hidden in their body language only familiar to them, born out of years of living in each other's pockets. She fights against the thought about how John fit in to the equation and gives up on trying to understand them. They're suspicious of her and Bobby, that much's for sure, and that's good because in this business you don't survive without a healthy amount of suspicion.

The boys grew up to be dangerous and who knows what else, but for now they're playing by the rules, John their only misstep, and she can't bring herself to mourn the John she had seen last. The man who had gotten himself blinding drunk in forty-five minutes straight, told loud tales about his boys and taken a swing at Bobby when he had tried to tell John that people could take his words the wrong way. Seems that the wrong way had been exactly the right way; it's all shot to hell, but the boys still hunt. Simple as that.

She glances at their clothes, a layer of dust and _years_ clinging to them, sticky speckles of blood and vomit on the younger one's jacket and shirt.

"Why don't you boys go clean up while Bobby an' me get the food ready?" She earns a mildly surprised glance from Dean, who then looks up and down his brother, acknowledging their road-worn appearance. "There are rooms in the back."

Dean turns to face her again, a small leer and the light in his eyes telling her that he's vaguely amused that it's the dirt on the outside, not inside, that bothers her the most.

She saunters towards the kitchen, but not too quickly to miss Dean stepping to Sam's side, helping him up and hauling both duffels over his right shoulder while his left hand goes around Sam's waist. Sam's left palm cups gently Dean's cheek, and it would look almost as if he's making sure that Dean's there, but she sees the love, the yearning in both of them.

Before the kitchen door swings closed behind her, Ellen catches Dean smirking at her, knowing just how unbrotherly a scene she saw. The boy is cocky as hell but he's got eyes and mind like quicksilver.

 

\---

 

The feverish sheen doesn't haunt Sam's eyes anymore when Dean takes a good look at him in the empty room farthest back. There's only weariness and the old ghosts of memories and overthinking, some leftover guilt from the dark night that Sam can't shed as easily as his dirtied jacket. Dean weaves his fingers under Sam's shirts, tugs them smoothly over his brother's head, exposing the clammy flesh to the slowly building heat of the desert morning. Sam groans, blinks in discomfort.

"Hey, I gotta make you pretty so that the nice lady out there feeds you," Dean smiles like nothing's wrong and flings the dingy shirts on the bed, making them land next to their duffels.

Sam's words are quiet, cautious. "I think we've been here before."

"What do you mean?" Dean's smile fades into waiting and his head snaps up, always looking for signs whispering of danger.

"Just-- before. With..." Sam lets the words trail off into the silence where Dean's holding his breath like it's a wall against the gust of memories. "I kinda remember them."

Dean rewinds the Polaroid picture memories in his head, of beer taps and hidden weapons, of smoky tables and hushed voices trading information, of low lights and Dad's hand insistent on his back, sliding lower in warning. There isn't a roadside tavern like this in the stack, bathed in harsh sunlight, kept by strangers that see through you. Maybe he didn't want them to see Dad's lust-dark eyes, back then, when Dad's warning turned into a promise of punishment. Maybe he didn't want to see a pair of eyes that understood and did nothing. But if Sammy remembers this place, then they were here once.

Sam's abs tighten under Dean's sudden touch, his hand sliding against the muscles, rubbing its way lower, seductive. "Bet we didn't do this then."

There's a frozen second when Dean's fingertips snake their way under the waistband of Sam's jeans, the stillness Dean's way to remind himself that Sam always lets him have this. Dean's had fingers on him that never cared about what he wanted, never slowed down, but his fingers have a standing invitation to Sam's body.

Dean falls out of his trance when Sam bucks up, attempts to get closer to Dean's palm. There's a pool of warmth so close to his fingers, and he grabs Sam's neck with his other hand, threads his fingers in the long hair and pulls Sam down for a kiss. Sam's fingers work open the button and zipper of his jeans, then Dean's before his hands circle around Dean, spread their heat up and down Dean's back.

"No, but we are doing this now," Sam murmurs against Dean's lips, wraps them in a caress, butterfly-soft.

The words are Dean's absolution, he _needs_ this after feeling John's cold touch from beyond. He licks his way into Sam's mouth, doesn't care about the hint of a foul taste that lingers on because underneath it's all Sam and _home_.

Sam leans back up, easily even against Dean's weight, then lays himself on the hard bed, limbs sprawling generously over the mattress. And this is like them, to meet in the middle of chaos, memories and guilt thrumming in the backs of their heads; mouths, hands not caring about anything but now.

Dean knows intimately the pressure and the points that make Sam scream or beg, the quickest route to apex and to drawn-out bliss, has learned those during their stolen years. And his hands are there now, sliding and gripping on Sam's thigh, in his hair, tugging just so, lips on the pulse in his neck. He can smell the burgers, their aroma wafting in from the kitchen, cruelly reminding him that there's no time for slow.

In short order, it goes like this: Sam hard, leaking. Dean stripping without a show, tongue on Sam's, on Sam. _For you, Sammy._ Fingers in Sam, Sam begging. _Come good, 'cause that's all you're gonna get._ Dean's mouth around Sam, gathering every drop, next sharing them with Sam. Finally Sam's mouth on Dean's rock-solid inches, slicking skin, dripping. It's a mess. Dean finally sliding in in in, Sam relaxed and open. Fingers tangled in fingers and hair, no embarrassment, heated kisses shared, air not moving in the room. Broken _Dean_ , but he's put back together as he comes.

The shower is a head bolted too close to the bathroom wall and a dull-shiny sewer grille on the floor, not enough space for one body let alone for them both, so Dean soaks a towel in the feeble spray and runs it over Sam's skin. Drops land everywhere on the tiles, the gray-washed towel gathering smudges like memories in its fibers. Sam does the same to Dean's skin, even when Dean wants to keep the extra layer of dirt, but Sam's palm or tongue follows every clean lick of the fabric, leaving behind the marks Dean desperately wants to carry.

 

\---

 

They perch over the bar counter, plates of fresh breakfast burgers and fries in front of them, the duffels at their feet. Sam's appetite is still lost somewhere between the dark back alley and the bone-dry desert but he soldiers on under Dean's concerned gaze. The burger tastes like ash, but he licks the salt from the fries, thinking how the greasy sodium chloride is a cheap substitute for Dean's sweet saltiness.

Bobby and Ellen don't even try to pretend they aren't watching him and Dean, but they're not questioning or assessing. There's a foreign look in their eyes -- Sam musters up his knowledge and labels it almost parental. Not that he's seen it from John, but there's warmth and a fraction of the same kind of concern that's also in Dean's eyes now as Sam pokes his food. He forces down a bite of meat and melted cheese, then twirls around on his bar stool to face the open space, to pretend that he's eating instead of merely nibbling the burger.

Sam looks around quietly, takes in the details he missed when he stumbled through the door and again when he stared at the business end of Bobby's Desert Eagle. The roadhouse is silvery gray with its unfinished wood, old and bright, and Sam feels almost at home, surrounded in history he's never known before. White light slithers in from the curtained windows, leaving no room for shadows, for off-shaded colors -- it's flame-yellow playing in Dean's hair and pure jade in his eyes.

There are questions Sam wants to ask about what he remembers about this place and what it means, but for Dean's sake he stays silent. Grabs a fry to lick. Dean's questions are just coiled tension in his shoulders, unvoiced but simmering right beneath the surface. Sam thinks about running his hand over Dean's back to flush the words out. In the end, he doesn't need to do anything, just keeps running his gaze over the old framed movie posters on the walls.

Dean speaks up, the over-confidence betraying his nerves even though to everyone else but Sam he sounds nothing but casual. "So you know us?"

There's a beat where Sam feels someone's eyes on his neck, but he doesn't turn around to follow the conversation. He takes his first hit of the beer, slightly watered down and on its way to warm in the rising day, and makes a face when he swallows. The weight of the eyes is still on him, Bobby's soft, relieved sigh barely audible when Sam sets the bottle back on the counter.

"We met John after--" Bobby hesitates and Sam vaguely recognizes the odd discretion Bobby's showing now, "after the fire, taught him a thing or two."

Yeah, Sam snorts quietly, he would've liked to teach Dad a thing or two, too, but Bobby's probably talking about tracking and weapons, not taking a knife to Dad's throat. Still, Sam angles himself so that he sees Bobby, catching the cautious, flittering look the man directs at him and fuck. It's not the way a mentor talks about his star student, it's the way a man says he's sorry when he knows it's not his place to say it out loud, and Bobby's quiet shame tells Sam that the apology's not about Mom.

Shit, somehow Bobby knows about Dad. About Dean.

No one should know, should never remind Dean of that. No one should pity his brother 'cause he's the strongest man there is, pulled his little brother through a burning desert, smiles at him even after Sam's bad, hurtful words. Sam turns his back on the walls, staring squarely at Bobby, ready to cut off the conversation if it goes in the wrong direction even for a single word.

"He had you two with him couple of times he came by," Bobby pauses again, must see the tight lines in Sam's jaw as a warning. "But he dropped off the grid when he went heavy with the sauce. We never saw him after that. There were some whispers about you but no one really knew anything."

 

"So we've been here before?", Dean turns to look at Sam, gaze flitting over the demolished burger. He frowns and Sam puts the plate away.

"Sam wasn't a day over ten the last time."

Dean's eyes widen with disbelief before he shutters back the emotion, looks at Sam like he's failed his brother somehow by not remembering. It breaks Sam's heart.

"Dean, I think we should go. The cops have probably found the Impala already," Sam says. A shy, apologetic smile follows the words; it's a front for Bobby but more a peace offering to Dean for cutting the visit so short. Dean rarely says two words to strangers unless they're marked for dead already or he wants something from them. In the silvery light of the Roadhouse things are different, Bobby and Ellen already their closest thing to the kind of a family normal people have, and Sam's a cold-hearted bastard for taking it away from Dean.

There's a touch of sadness in Dean's eyes, a gray veil over the irises before Dean blinks it away. They both know Sam saw it, that it _was_ there, but they go on because that's all they can do.

Bobby grabs his Eagle from the counter, the move slightly less guarded than before, and gestures towards the back door. "The car's out back. Don't think you boys saw it when you came in." There's a hint of pride in Bobby's voice that speaks of better, happier years; a history intricately woven with people's lives. Dean uses that same tone when he speaks of his baby and Sam smiles quietly, just _knows_ that Dean will appreciate Bobby's car.

Dean disappears to the back hallway, his battered duffel slung over his shoulder, and Sam can't let this small reprieve end like this. Not before some things are made clear. "Dean, I'll catch up with you, just need to talk to Bobby for a sec."

Dean pokes his head back around the corner, eyebrow raised in question, the corner of his mouth twitching, hand undoubtedly on the butt of his Colt tucked under the waistband of his jeans -- all the words they need spelled out right there in the curves and angles of Dean's face. _Sure you can handle this?_ in his raised eyebrow with _What's on your mind, Sammy?_ and a very silent _Please_ in the lines of his mouth and the corners of his eyes.

Ellen slides out from behind the counter, shotgun in hand, and Sam flashes her his best smile. It doesn't work but Bobby asks her to show Dean the car and herds her out. There's no fear in the old man, Sam doesn't see it or smell it, and it tells him better than anything that Bobby's on their side. The man knows what Sam and his brother have done to Dad, he knows most of the story and still is ready to hear them out.

They eye each other for a moment, and Bobby breaks the silence as soon the back door clicks shut. "What's on your mind, son?"

_Son_ is better than _boy_ they got from Dad, warm in that tone that's reserved for people who share a close bond.

"You think that anyone else knows? About... " It's all Sam needs to say.

Bobby looks away, almost guiltily. Sam's jaw tightens, almost doesn't want to think about who or how. Gets calmer by feeling the soothing pressure of his Taurus against his back, knowing that there is always that way to deal with the answer. "Your Daddy never stopped anywhere long, 'cept here. Don't think that it was so obvious that anyone else noticed."

Sam grits his teeth, hard enough to make his jaws ache. No one should know, not even an old mentor with the kind of sharp instincts that let a hunter live that old. There shouldn't be anything to know about. _Fuck._

"I'm sorry, Sam." Bobby takes half a steps closer, his voice calm, heart-felt. Another apology that doesn't mean a damn thing. "I tried to talk some sense into the fool when I found out, but he was too liqouered up to listen. Took off the next day and never came back."

And suddenly, Sam wants to cry because, fuck, those words were the signal for John to start running and they haven't stopped after that, just hit the ground running every time hiding their screwed-up family became impossible. He blinks and silences the sob with a measured inhale and thin lips, nods a sincere _Thanks for trying_ at Bobby. "You won't tell anyone?"

It's a question as much as Bobby's "Never have" is an answer. It's a good answer, though, and Sam vows to come back one day, let Dean have this desert refuge with its soft light and solid people.

Sam takes another step forward and shakes Bobby's hand with a sincere grip. Gives him a friendly smile on top of it. "Thanks, Bobby."

Bobby smiles behind his beard, about to say something else before a shot rings out. They draw their guns, look at each other with suspicion and alarm, when a second shot registers. Then a third and after that it's a hail of bullets, hard lead coming in thick and loud, impossible to keep count.

 

As soon as Dean steps out back, he's faced with a classic Chevelle parked half in a narrow strip of shade, two wide gunmetal gray stripes painted over her black finish. It's cheating, Dean thinks, an attempt to make the car look badass when the black still bends light in a friendly way.

In a way his baby sure as hell doesn't.

That's real badassery, his baby, one single color and gleaming chrome set in a deceptive grin, danger and power lying just beneath the surface, drawn out if anyone wanders too close. His baby is one of a kind but this? Well, it's not too bad. Hell, he could've done worse than his baby's little sister, and Dean hides his smile.

"You sure you wanna let us take her for a spin?"

"We'll manage," Ellen says, but she hovers over him and the car like a sharp-clawed mama bear.

The Chevelle's well kept, not wax-shiny but infused with life and free of battle scars, and Dean rounds the hood to see the passenger's side stretch out smooth. Light catches in the surface, scatters from the metal in arcs and streams through the windshield where water has once dried into faint specks and streaks.

Ellen's still sizing up Dean, the line of her jaw tense, and Dean recognizes blood-deep loyalty when he sees it, appreciates it even more than the car. "She looks nice."

A small smile plays on Ellen's lips, warm and real, curled inward before her eyes meet Dean's. "That she does."

It's an intimate moment, some unnamed bond forming there, and Dean wants to ask about her and Bobby, about this place. He's not one for histories and knowing them, unless it's Sam, but here the years on the wood and sand, on the car and Ellen, seem right. He lets it go, enjoys the quiet and turns his face towards the sun that then disappears behind a cloud, leaving him cold and sharp.

Something's wrong.

The black metal of the car pings innocently two feet from Dean, a shredded hole in the middle of the hood, the roar of a rifle reaching him just a fraction of a second later and then there's nothing left to do but fight. It doesn't matter -- after all, fighting's what he and Sam do best.

Dean ducks behind the Chevelle, Ellen already sitting there, back pressed against her rear tire, and more bullets bore into the passenger's side. They're coming in hard and fast, a goddamn team taking shots at them.

His duffel sits neatly between them, but his sawed-off shotgun is useless from this distance like Ellen's is, too, not to mention the knives, and besides his Colt, Dean only salvaged a .357 revolver and a Glock with assorted ammo from the Impala. No rifles because he does his killing up close and very fucking personal.

"It came from behind the hills," Ellen nods towards the slight swell of ground behind the car, the only cover in a two-hundred yard radius, big enough to hide cars, small enough for only a handful of them. "Which means it ain't the local sheriff. He can't hit a target even in a videogame."

"Must be the feds, then. Fuck, they move faster than I thought."

They're pinned for now, too many uncovered yards to the door. No use to spend ammo on something they can't see.

Sam's voice carries from the back door, strong and urgent. "Dean, you okay?"

"Yeah. Feds are comin' in," Dean shouts back. Sam peeks out the door, and fuck if he can't take Dean's word for anything. "Get the fuck back inside, Sam! I got this covered."

Rifle bullets hit the doorway, nestled tightly together like a shotgun blast just as Sam disappears. Another time and place and he would've seen wisps of ghost dispersing after a blast of rock salt. Along the shrill of the bullets, sirens sound from behind the hills like a swarm of demented banshees. It's big and bad, tens of cars racing down the lanes from both directions, lights flashing arrhythmically. A news van follows on the cops' tails. Fucking vultures.

 

Dean takes another look at his arsenal, not enough bullets to get them out of this even if he'd pick this as a good time to start wasting humans. But he needs to get Sammy out of this, grab him out of this flameless fire and just run until the only things on their tails are their own shadows.

The cars fall into formation, a line of offense, metal side skimming metal side, sirens still screaming loud. A solid blockade only thirty yards out and another line of cars pulls up behind the first, the back-up and a second wave of offense. Last line of defense.

Errant bullets from the hills keep hitting the ground, the car and the wood of the Roadhouse while the kicked-up dust settles back into place, engines killed and men scrambling out with guns drawn out. It's toxic lead all around them and apparently enough ammo to kill the entire population of Arizona three times over.

Dean can't even see the other end of the row of police cars, a corner of the building blocking the view when he tries, the sun painting the desert blinding bright again. That's the worst part about this, not knowing what's out there, what Sam and Bobby will have to face alone. He's silently running through his options -- none of them are looking good, but he'll do everything he can to get Sam out. He'll fucking shoot his way out if that gets them anywhere, won't care too much if his aim slips a little wide in the heat. And if there's a bullet meant for him and Sam, well, they'll at least go together.

 

\---

 

"You're gonna need another ride," Ellen screams over the noise. "And you need to get Sam." Ellen speaks up again before Dean can get sarcastic. "You have to bargain your way out."

She throws down her shotgun on the dusty ground, turns around so she's facing the Chevelle and the firing squad behind it. This she can do for the boys. "I'll be your hostage and you get one those cars for you and Sam."

Dean doesn't waste time trying to talk her out of it, just looks her over. It should hurt Ellen that she's that easily expendable to Dean, but instead she's happy to see how Dean puts Sam before everything else. The boys need each other, are all they have left in this world.

"What about Bobby and Sam?"

"Bobby'll know what's going on. They'll do the same."

"You sure about that? 'Cause if he doesn't and puts a gun to Sam, I'm gonna shoot him."

Ellen gets on her knees, smiles at Dean, calm and steady. "He'll know. Now let's go."

Dean hesitates only for a second, then packs more guns on his person and gets behind Ellen to haul her up.

She sticks her hands up, prays that this works. Then she starts shouting "Don't shoot".

They do stop shooting, eventually, when bullets have whirled past too close to her hands, when her voice is failing and scratchy. She leans her neck against the muzzle of Dean's gun, relaxes and lets Dean take it from here.

 

\---

 

There's a guy in a suit, a Kevlar vest instead of a jacket, stepping forward, past the row of police cars, looking like he's the top dog. The face is familiar to Dean from the FBI database Sam hacked into after the guy's name was on an article about them. Henriksen's wearing a smirk, wide and obnoxious, gun hanging from loose, cocksure fingers.

"Well, well. If it isn't Dean Winchester, alive and in the flesh."

Dean keeps the gun on Ellen and forces her slowly away from the Roadhouse to spare Sam from the attention. "Yup, that's me. All one hundred percent, grade A human, too."

"That's funny. You know, you're a hard man to find, Dean. You and your little brother. 'Course the trail of corpses has been a good lead."

"Yeah," Dean sighs almost wistfully, then gets to business. "Well, it'd be nice to catch up with you, agent Henriksen, but I need to cut this short. Me an' Sam are gonna borrow one of your cars there and when we've gotten where we need to be, we'll let the hostages go."

"You mean her and the old guy inside?" Henriksen queries. "Might be a little late for that, Dean. There are already cells waiting for you two at supermax."

A cloud blots out the sun at that moment, the warmth flees from Dean's skin and leaves behind a cold, bad feeling. Two of the feds come from around the corner of the Roadhouse, Sam in their hands with his feet dragging uselessly behind him, face bruised, blood smeared on his lips and forehead. Henriksen gestures at the men and they stop beside him.

The gun in Dean's hand slips in his sweaty palm, but Ellen breathes in sharp and nudges her neck more tightly against the muzzle.

"So, Dean. What do you want?" Henriksen's so damn smug, standing so close to Sam, that Dean wants to drive his fist through that face. "Because you're not getting anything except the chair. You and Sammy here. Think about how he's going to be fried extra crisp, smelling sweet like well-done meat."

The ground beneath Dean's feet cracks open. Everything is going all wrong. Sam's not supposed to be here, involved in this, his only crime believing in Dean and fighting for him.

Dean's Colt is cocked, the trigger one firm press away from bringing down his personal apocalypse. Dean could do it, could start shooting, wild and desperate until his bullets run out, until his own rage and fire die down. One look at Sam, though, and he knows he won't. Not when Sam's drawing up his last strength, using his big eyes to tell Dean _no_.

"You're outmanned, outgunned. And I'm going to do some interesting things to little brother here if you don't throw the gun down." Henriksen steps even closer to Sam, but Sam spits on his boot, then takes a hard punch in the gut for it. Dean steps closer, points the gun at Henriksen instead of Ellen.

Their life has been filled with not-choices, moments exactly like this.

"C'mon on, Dean. Give up or watch Sammy get fucked."

His eyes burn from the sun and the sand, the stress, the fear of losing Sammy, but Sam smiles at him. They're gonna survive this. Dean puts down his Colt, doesn't give Henriksen any reason to kick up a fuss.

The feds jump him, nothing Dean hadn't suspected, nothing like professionals, and they take out their frustration on Dean for all the shit he and Sam put them through. His limbs go numb from the punches and kicks before he even hits the ground.

When they haul him up three cracked bones and a bloody, bruise-swollen face later, there's the smell of rain in the air, clouds mushrooming up like stubby fingers reaching for God, a thick cover rolling in from the horizon.

And he feels like a leaf in the wind when they shove him in the back of one of the police cars, the ugly twist and pull of his shoulders rocking him like only a mild turbulence in the breeze that's picking up. Through his better eye he sees how a curtain of gray clouds eats the sun and wears a golden smiling edge for him and Sam, promising that they'll fall to ground gently. He laughs.

* * *

**Now, July 2004, Supermax**

The corner opposite from the simple cot in his cell has become Sam's sanctuary during his year of imprisonment. Long hours go by while he ignores the parts inside him that have been hollowed out, spends his days counting the discolored tiles in the walls and ceiling over and over and over again. He belts out Dean's cock-rock before he starts counting again.

Sam hasn't seen Dean for eleven weeks, five days and he'd know the hours and minutes, too, if he only knew what time it was now. But clocks are a luxury like the sun and Dean have been after their last day in psych evaluation, and now Sam knows the lonely daily routines only as _chow time_ and _lights out_. No more quiet words from Dean, no slow touches that made Sam feel braver.

That day, the prison psychiatrist, Ellicott, had sat high and mighty in his chair -- the office lacking in dark mahogany but filled with old, red and yellow spined books -- wanting to talk with both of them. He had skirted politely around the reason, using words like childhood traumas and codependence, blushing when Dean had said straight out, "You mean fraternal incest."

Sam had loved Dean's shameless smirk, followed by that golden smile of Dean's directed at him, not the psychiatrist, not ever at others. They had been invincible on the outside, standing on a mountain that reached the skies, nothing to reach their heights, and Sam had felt that same triumph by just looking at Dean. And then the man just had to ask Dean about their father, about being sexually abused.

It had taken only a moment of silence for Dean to jump up and stab Ellicott's hand to the desk, hard, with a blunt silver letter opener; another for Sam to kiss Dean amidst the screams and chaos, to lift his shackled hands and run a thumb along Dean's silently trembling jaw; and eight guards to pry them apart with kicks and sticks and haul them away to dark isolation.

Despite the weeks and weeks of separation, Dean is a constant element; Sam feels his big brother's moods through the filthy-gray walls, sniffs them in the air, sees them in how everyone else moves. Even when locked behind the thickest doors, Dean seeps out and seeks Sam out from the crowd.

Sam gets hard, thinking about Dean, imagining Dean appearing in his cell after such a long time, just the two of them crowding the small space. Maybe Dean shoving Sam against a wall, bending him over the cot and fucking him like there's no tomorrow. Maybe Sam apologizing for all the years he let Dean get hurt by making Dean come again and again. Sam slips his hand inside the prison overalls, thumbs the head of his cock, slick already from just the idea of Dean being there.

He waits for the need to be at its highest, then withdraws his hand. His cock throbs, needs to be touched, needs _Dean_ , hand and heart, and Sam won't let it have anything else. Sam watches his dick soften slowly, saves all of himself for Dean.

In the evenings, Sam scrapes the nail of his middle finger against the floor, a wet patch where unwanted moisture has eaten away the hard layers of plaster, making a groove for the water to gather. The dip fills up every three days and when it's filled to the brim, he plucks the drops one at a time and licks them from his fingers. They glitter green and taste like freedom.

Sam smiles when he imagines the taste of the tepid water, flicks his left thumb over the scar decorating his right palm. On the days when the moisture builds up to make a tiny flicker of hope, he rubs the scar deeper into his skin, his mind fluttering in twilight zone. Sometimes he forgets details of the second time Dean cut it open in the desert, but he always, _always_ , remembers what it means.

He keeps drinking from the fountain of trust, abiding his time, waiting for fate to pull his strings.

 

\---

 

When Victor meets warden Walker for the first time after delivering the Winchester brothers to their new living quarters, Gordon Walker specifically asked to see him. They're heading through a tangle of narrow corridors, the first ones have windows but they steadily evolve into windowless and threatening as Walker's explaining the why's to him.

"The fuckers killed two guards and mutilated the prison shrink. Said that the guards were demons. Imagine that," Walker says low and calm.

"And the shrink?" Victor asks though it doesn't really matter. But the Winchesters always have a reason.

"Apparently he was just an asshole," Walker chuckles, a hollow, lifeless sound, then gets serious. "Want to know why you're here, Victor?"

"Sure," Victor says, eyebrow raised. Amused because he already knows why. He's even got an extra bounce in his step because there aren't that many reasons why he specifically would be there, and one of the two reasons has the name Sam Winchester. He swallows down the tingling anticipation as they pass another guard station and a set of heavy, bolted steel doors.

"We're gonna move them in a couple of days, have their heads checked. Fucking psychos, won't be coming back here if the docs even look their way, and that's too fucking easy for them. Goddamn padded cells and straitjackets. The fuckers are gonna be drooling from the mouth the rest of their lives and not even know that they're being punished."

"So you want them out, but not in the crazy house?"

"I want them gone. I want someone to put a bullet in every one of their bones and I want their bodies cut into pieces. They're not even humans. Assholes keep fucking with me and the fucking natural order of things. This is personal."

"And I'm here why?" Victor cuts the monologue, guessing that there'll be plenty more where it came from if he holds his tongue.

"You're the hero, Victor. You brought them in, the craziest shitfucks of the decade. Think what will happen to your reputation if they try to escape and you shoot them? The hero cop protecting the little people. No one cares about a pair of brother-fucking fags, but they would write songs about you."

"That sure does sound good." Victor thinks about his new book, the details and chapters he could add; the sweet sounds he could pull from Sam and have them all to himself.

"You just pull over somewhere quiet, let them out and have at it. No one is going to question you if they've got extra bruises or broken bones. Shit happens when you stumble over in shackles."

They stop in front of another steel door, sturdy and unyielding but narrower. Henriksen peeks in through the narrow steel-threaded window, and if the sight of Sam goddamn motherfucking Winchester sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up and tucked against his chest isn't the prettiest thing he's ever seen, it comes in second only to how he'll look after Victor gets to unfold that body. And how he'll make big brother bleed and watch Victor fuck Sam raw at the side of some dead road, out of everyone's way, before he guns them down. Maybe he'll have another round after that, when it's all nice and quiet again.

"Sorry you can't see the other one right now. He's got a special visitor." Walker knocks on the window, gets no reaction from Sam.

"Who?" Victor asks, part confused, part intrigued. The brothers have been cut off from all unnecessary contact for months now. Not even he can pay a personal visit to Sam before the day he'll cart him and Dean to the big house.

"Jo Gale," Gordon grins.

"The reporter?"

"Yup."

"How the hell did that happen?"

"It's a PR thing. These days, you gotta be friendly with the media. She's gonna interview him live the day before they're transferred."

"Just Dean? Not Sam?"

"As you can probably see," Gordon jabs his thumb at the little window, this time earning a glare from Sam. "Sam's been a little... unbalanced after they put him in isolation. Tries to hurt himself sometimes. Doesn't talk to anyone, just sings and fucking stares at you. At least Dean's talking enough for the both them. Always whispering around but we can't figure out how or what about. Fucking up to something, if you ask me."

"Sure." Sadness tugs on Victor's thoughts when he glances through the window again. Sam Winchester was so full of spirit once, it'd be too bad if it's all gone now. He wants Sam to fight him when the moment comes, to put bruises on Sam's skin fairly, to hurt Sam because little Sammy chose to make it so.

When he looks away, Gordon's staring at him, eyes gleaming and satisfied, like he heard everything Victor just thought about. "You know what, agent Henriksen? We could use some extra manpower during the interview. Maybe someone to keep a real close eye on Sammy here, just in case he decides to make trouble. You interested?"

"More than."

"Good. That's settled then. Maybe you two can make friends before the big trip."

Anticipation rushes into Victor's veins, leaves his nerves dancing with fire. He can play nice with Sam once before he has time for more, maybe get to know that pouty mouth, add some marks to show big brother whose bitch Sam is now.

 

\---

 

Dean agreed to do the interview only because it disrupts the routine, his and the prison's. There'll be variables they can't control, cameras to keep him safer, and it'll be a day before they're supposed to be, in Gordon Walker's words, lobotomized and left to drool themselves wet. It's the last chance to make a break for it. Act like he feels a need to spill his guts on tv like every two-bit nutjob getting their fifteen minutes of fame.

An hour before showtime, they drag him away to be made to look presentable. They even let him have a goddamn hair cut when he asks. Not that the he didn't manage to pull off the bangs like Sammy, but it's the principle of the matter. Somehow he's allowed to wear his jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Maybe it's a ratings thing -- a monster that looks normal drawing in the viewers -- he doesn't know, doesn't care, just enjoys having a waist again, and he generously scratches his skin under the shirt while a five-guard escort gets him to the interview room.

Dean sits quietly, watches the crew get ready in the cramped space of the rec room around him. Ignores the two cameras there to suck out his soul and trap it there forever. They have a language of their own, hands steady with the equipment but eyes wary, making sure that the guards are still there whenever Dean shifts in his seat. That'll work, he thinks, goes on to figure out who will duck when someone tells them to and who will panic. He makes note of how many guns there are, where everyone is, how to pick each and everyone of the crew and guards out.

Jo Gale chatters on while getting ready, giving him a run-down of the interview which he doesn't listen, telling how to angle the lights and cameras so she looks her prettiest. When the producer starts counting down the final seconds before they go live, Dean's good and ready to go.

The interviewer's a pretty little thing, obvious in the way that had Dean figured her out three minutes into their first meeting: ambitious as hell and on his side until she gets the scoop she's looking for. He knows her type, knows she'll take the bait when he waves it at her.

Dean settles into the chair, making the effort to look amused and interested like he's just itching to have a serious heart-to-heart on tv for his fifteen minutes.

 

Jo lets herself relax, smiles into the camera innocently but mentally projects a tough girl image. "Welcome to American Maniacs. I'm Jo Gale, reporting live, and with me is the notorious Dean Winchester."

Dean just nods, raises his right hand up to his forehead in greeting, not quite getting it up to his forehead without lifting his chained left hand.

"Forty bodies in twenty-nine days. Tell us about that."

"What's there to tell? Lots of evil going round these days. No one's obviously swung by these parts lately." Dean leans back in his chair, right elbow now slung over the back as far as possible with the shackles on, legs splayed wide. He smirks and Jo's eyes trail down and up quickly.

Dean Winchester doesn't look too bad at all, but even she knows that looks aren't always everything -- something's wrong with his casual confidence. Like he's on top of the food chain, too much time on his hands leaving him to play games because he's not on anyone's menu; like he could just bust out whenever this got too boring for him.

"So you're saying that the people you killed were evil and deserved to die?"

"That's the general idea, yeah."

"Okay, you..." her voice falters in mock shock and disgust before she steels herself against the brutal violence. In reality, she just clenches her ass, never going method with her acting. "Eleven decapitations, two electrocutions-- you stabbed eight, shot eighteen and then mutilated and burned some of the bodies. The federal coroner can't even figure out what really killed one of them-- the one you nailed to a coffin. So, Dean, why the gore?"

Dean doesn't even twitch at the list of his crimes he was accused -- and convicted -- of. "Hey, we don't make the rules, we just follow 'em."

"Rules? Is this a game to you and Sam, your little brother?" Darkness falls in Dean's eyes, and it unnerves Jo.

She shouldn't have brought it up, the warning from warden Walker had been loud and clear. _The quickest way to get on his bad side is to mention his brother. He's quite protective of the little shit._ But she wanted drama, wanted to ask the questions that leave the most brutal killers vulnerable in front of her. This is a story of a lifetime and she's going to milk it clean.

Dean leans forward and despite the shackles and guards and distance, Jo's instincts scream danger and make her pull back.

He fills the empty space, stares at Jo like a predator, makes her squirm. His voice is dead-serious, just short of menacing. "Listen, sweetheart. We didn't choose the game, the rules, or the players. The players chose us a long time ago, so here we are. Playing."

Jo doesn't quite understand, surely the victims didn't ask for it, and there's nothing interesting in their childhood but a nomadic lifestyle and a tragic house fire that took their mother. But serial killer logic fails her now and again even after all those interviews she's done with them, so she shrugs it off and goes for the grand prize. "How do you feel about killing all those people?"

Dean leans back again, settles uncomfortably against the back rest like he's got something to hide, hands in his lap. "They weren't people."

Again, it comes back to the victims. Maybe they were chosen in a certain way, a way more intricate than age, gender or race. Or maybe they were just victims of opportunity, convenient in a way that random people are. Jo queries with a hint of annoyance, wants a straight answer. "Then what were they?"

"Monsters," Dean deadpans.

Unlike other serial killers she's met, Dean doesn't make jokes about it, doesn't call them weak, stupid or handy. Doesn't lift himself above them and brag how he's smarter than everyone else. It unnerves Jo more than the pools of blood she saw in the dozens of crime scene photos, sends shivers down her spine to realize that maybe the Winchesters don't need to brag.

"They say that _you_ are monsters."

Dean just smirks. "They say lots of things. You know, this one smokin' chick wrote me and called me hot. Sent me a photo of herself and an engagement ring inside a pair of panties."

Jo sees her opportunity. Ever since the day she saw Dean fighting for Sam's freedom at the Roadhouse, she's wondered about them. She's been warned by the warden and by Dean Winchester himself that Sam is a touchy subject, but this is where the real scoop lies. This is what she needs to get to the top, a look under the hard veneer of a dangerous killer, an answer to what everyone suspects but doesn't dare to ask. "I see you're not wearing the ring. Afraid that Sam is going to be jealous?"

 

There they are, the words he's waited for, too fucking wrong to be said out loud but so right for Dean's plan. The tipping point of the whole fucking prison population is close, hate and fear and admiration wafting in the air, saturating every mind inside the thick walls. Dean knows it because he put it there, started rumors about himself and Sam, traded his skills for small favors and words for another words -- all just for this moment.

He needs to focus now, bring down the pieces together to create his break. He needs chaos and anarchy, one second where his gory past leaves everyone blind for the present.

Dean swallows the grimace, chokes down his instinct to protect Sam from this public reputation even when it means shit, leans over the table conspiratorially. "No, we're happy on our own. You know, we share everything, the guns, the women..."

Dean looks down slowly from Jo's eyes, down her neck, her cleavage, before leering appreciatively in a way he knows works on her. She smiles back, leans a little closer to bask in Dean's attention, to strut before him like an unattainable prize.

"Wouldn't mind showing your pretty ass how the Winchesters double team. Bet you'd love being our bitch."

A sudden howl from hundreds of mouths echoes through the prison. It rises and rises, drowns out the noise of TVs in rec rooms, the dirty imagination of men caged up for too long running amok in locked and barred halls. The guards in the cell look at each other, surprised by the sound, try to locate its source. Jo Gale looks disgusted and appalled.

Half a dozen walkie-talkies let out sharp, crackling words simultaneously, yell about a riot in the B wing. The guards look at each other and no one really knows whether to stay or go.

The balance tips.

Dean leaps up, rams himself against the closest guard, hits his face with his shackled fists. The bones shatter with a sick crunch, the shotgun clatters to the floor, and Dean jams double elbows to the man's kidneys.

The four other guards are still fighting to understand what just happened, so with two long strides Dean is next to the closest one of them, elbowing the man in the gut. He doubles up, just tight enough for Dean to grab the guy's hair and drive a knee to his face.

The camera crew is still and afraid, the three guards messing with their weapons. Dean leaps over the desk to take down the familiar guy in the middle, Carey, he thinks is his name. Christ, Carey's just a spooked kid. He gets in a weak punch when Dean doesn't try to block it, going for the gun dangling from his fingers. Carey doesn't let go of it, so Dean wraps his hands over Carey's, drags the gun down and aims it at the guard standing over them. He pulls the trigger and doesn't flinch when blood spatters from the man's shoulder land on them.

Dean wrenches his bound arms around Carey's upper body, Dean shielded by the other man's trembling frame, the gun raised on Carey's temple. The only guard left standing tries to find a clear line of fire but Dean knows he can't get it, won't take it unless he's absolutely sure.

They all know the situation. Hostages mean taking no unnecessary risks or chances. Dean's not going to kill anyone in the room, just a bunch of goddamn kids and fools, but they see him as the monster and so he measures his words, makes them cold and believable, the law.

Dean's not even short of breath when he speaks. "Put the gun down."

After Dean lets his eyes gleam dark, insane, every single one of his orders are carried out. The guards are all cuffed to the bars, Carey the last one after unchaining Dean with careful, shaking fingers.

Dean tucks two of the guards' handguns in the waistband of his jeans, the barrels hard against his spine, adds one more to the front, throws the rest outside the cell out of anyone's reach, a shotgun in his hands.

He picks Jo and the young, geeky-looking kid with the camera, Andy, to be his hostages, leaving the rest of the crew cuffed to the bars as well. Only as the rec room door clicks shut behind Dean, he shakes off the autopilot and allows himself to think. Not that there's much choice. Sam. Fast.

There's resistance, other guards sent in to catch him, but Andy's camera is on them, still reporting of actions not done by the book, and Dean pushes through barricades with Jo's neck in the crook of his elbow and a shotgun trained on her and anyone who doesn't know how to behave.

Slowly, they make progress through the prison, but after a while the riot in the general population is the main attraction, leaving only handful of men in their riot gear to follow them through the corridors.

A group of inmates charges from nowhere when they inch past the infirmary, taking the guards down with surgical steel in all its different forms. One or two try to go for Jo, but Dean lets shotgun pellets shred the flesh of their legs. The squeals from the guards and inmates sound the same to Dean. When Dean's out of shells, he throws the shotgun down, grabs one of the guns in his waistband, pushes Jo and Andy through a door to the corridor where the guards assured Sam's cell would be.

There's a guard standing in front of Sam's cell; slow reaction time and a wedding ring make it easy to persuade him into cooperation. At Dean's order, Jo cuffs the guy's hands behind his back. After, she looks Dean with hard eyes that don't mask the fear all the way. Dean knocks the guard unconscious, runs his eyes again over Jo and finds her mask slipping but she replaces it quickly. It's good enough for now, Dean decides, maybe she could be useful when he and Sam are heading out.

Jo follows Dean's orders and finds the keys to the cell door, hands over the guard's gun. Dean turns his back to Jo and Andy, unloads the gun in a blink of an eye, gives it back to her, tells her not to shoot him or Sam and they're cool. Her eyes widen, can't believe Dean gave her a gun, but Dean knows that she's after her story, ambitious enough not to turn on him. No risk to Sam and him -- to anyone -- with an empty gun, but a factor not to be excluded when cops size up the odds. Right next to her, Andy's trembling, the camera high up on his shoulder, spooked into silence, turning vaguely green when Jo bumps their shoulders together. But he's not completely freaking out so Dean lets Jo handle him.

The solid metal door swings open, slow, squeaky, and the revealed scene whites out Dean's brain with sizzling fury, sends electrifying jolts of rage to his limbs.

Sam is curled up on the floor half-conscious, his torso stripped from the orange prison overalls, nose bleeding down his cheek, hands cuffed behind his back, knuckles scuffed and red. Henriksen's out of his pants already, holding a gun against Sam's throat, the other hand fast on its way to Sam's crotch.

Dean can't take a shot when the fucking bastard's right in front of Sam like that, can't chance a random through'n'through hitting Sam now. He's two steps away from flinging himself on Henriksen, beating him into a messy pile of skin, bones, and tissue when the fucker cocks the gun against Sam's throat. If there's one sound Dean recognizes, it's danger that's about to pull him and Sam apart, so he freezes, gun in hand, hot anger filling his body, alive and sharp.

"Come to save little brother from the big bad wolf?" Henriksen smirks, cocky, ducks behind Sam and manhandles him to his feet. Sam's weight sways them both but Dean still hasn't got a clean line of fire.

Henriksen's eyes have that same crazy shine than in the Roadhouse, the moment like a dark déjà-vu, but Dean refuses to let this be the end. "Fuck you."

Sam shakes himself awake then, smiles at Dean wide and so fucking bright, blood staining his lips and teeth dark red. The pink tip of Sam's tongue flick over the mess, tastes it, and he smiles wider. "Fate, Dean. Just us."

Dean grips his palm tighter around the gun, _fate_ , yes. Only them, together, here or beyond. Here if he hits Henriksen; beyond if he shoots Sam and gets then shot himself; maybe he'd even finish the job himself before Henriksen gets the chance.

It doesn't matter where, they'll be together always.

Suddenly, Sam twists his body and jerks to his left, something of a hip-toss that puts an inch of air between his neck and the gun, forces the back of Henriksen's head out of Sam's shadow.

Pure instinct guides Dean. He shoots without hesitation.

Blood sprays on the tiles behind Sam, thicker pieces of bone sticking to the tiles. Sam's still turning around; old momentum has them going, Henriksen on Sam's back, and they fall to the floor in a messy tangle of limbs.

A scream echoes in the small space, either Jo or Andy responsible for it, maybe both. Eventually, the sound dies, leaving him in dead-silence, his fears creeping out of the shadows and sliding under his skin.

Dean draws in a broken breath, a slow stutter over dry lips. "Sam?"

Cold, dead seconds tick by, Dean's skin crawling with dread. He can't move, can't take the few steps and pull Sam out, can't think about what he has left in this world if Sam's dead. He shifts the gun in his hand, grips it tighter, wonders if this was all life had to offer him: loss, blood. Death.

Dean's throat tightens against the rising bile. He takes a small step forward, firmly decides to find out if everything's over, but he stills again when he sees the small pool of blood under the bodies.

"Sam?" he whispers.

The heap moves, both bodies shuffle around, the other just a dead meat puppet.

"Dean?" Sam rolls to his side, dazed. "Which one did you shoot?" He looks up at Dean, grins crookedly and fusion-bright.

Dean huffs, shakes his head, tension melting away, and can't stop his smile. "Don't push it, Sammy. I could still shoot you."

"And what? Waste the bullet?" Sam pulls himself free from underneath Henriksen's limp body, flops back to the floor face down, wiggles his fingers. "You got the keys?"

"What if I like you better that way?" Dean smirks, but he's already in motion, crouching over Sam and fishing Henriksen's pockets for the key.

"Kinky fucker," Sam mutters into the floor when Dean uncuffs him.

Dean blinks away the tear forming in his eye before Sam can see it and hauls his brother upright. "You betcha." He kisses Sam, lips pressed hard together for their reunion, tongue licking away the remaining trickles of blood on Sam's lips. "Gonna show you later just how kinky."

Sam pulls away for a second, breathless already. "That a promise?"

"That's definitely a promise," Dean says, hauls Sam's body tight against his, arms on the cool, sweaty skin of Sam's back, lips tracing Sam's.

The kiss goes on, hungry and joyous until Jo squeaks, a strangled breath of sound, and Dean remembers where they are. Breaks the kiss, but turns to look straight at Jo, mindless of Andy and his camera. "How about it, sweetheart? You gonna let us both in?"

Sam's confused and Jo's blushing bright red, but Dean lets it go, grins, slaps Sam on the shoulder. "Let's go, tiger."

 

\---

 

Sam arms himself with one of Dean's guns, shoulders back into his bloody overalls and keeps up the rear while Dean prowls down the narrow corridors, doors jammed open. Jo and Andy stumble along, slowing their run, but there's no one hunting them down.

After they inch past the door leading out of the wing where Sam was held, they walk straight into the fighting ground. Metal's rattling loud everywhere: bodies thrown into solid tables, hands shaking the still-closed cages. Chaotic noise surfs around the hallways, blood spatter and trails on the walls displayed like new-age cave paintings. There are bodies in overalls lying around, propped against the walls, guards apparently not enough for the blood-hungry population, gangs sorting out their disputes now that they have the chance.

No one pays attention to the four of them, not really, just quick looks, the bravest ones shouting out and calling them fags and what-not. Dean keeps up the steady stride unshaken, and Sam follows his brother's example. Jo looks almost giddy, does random hand signals at Andy, Sam wondering if she'll make a head band out of something and pretend she's in the middle of a guerrilla war. Sam keeps prodding Andy along, the cameraman obviously scared, missing Jo's enthusiasm and Sam doesn't blame him.

Everything goes well until they reach the last set of heavy doors; the processing station and main entrance just behind the steel, so close that Sam can smell the fresh air from the crack of the doors.

There's a barricade of guards in riot gear, Gordon Walker standing right in the middle, tall, undeterred. Chuckling. From their few encounters, Sam knows the warden isn't a frothing-at-the-mouth psycho but one of the calm-and-quiet variety. Sam would prefer the former, unhinged, unhidden thoughts revealing more than a creepy smile and a hollow laugh ever could.

Dean pulls Jo in front of him for cover; Sam does the same with Andy even though the cameraman is much too short to shield him completely.

Dean lets out a string of expletives, Sam swallows hard. Yes, they have hostages, thanks to whatever Dean did; they can use them as a leverage, but this won't be pretty, the warden just crazy enough to take down all of them.

"Sorry, boys. Can't let you leave now, you have a big day tomorrow," Walker says, calm.

"Yeah, you're right, Gordy. Getting our brain fried sounds much more fun than throwing back a few cold ones and getting a good blowjob," Dean replies to Gordon.

They're locked in a stand-off, mouths tight, eyes narrow, guns raised.

Then, suddenly, the guards fly backwards through the air, into the steel door, thrown around by an invisible hand. They fall down unconscious, maybe dead. Walker seethes, still standing but frozen to the spot, hands limp at his sides.

Sam looks around, meets Dean's puzzled gaze and spots a man in the hallway behind them. His eyes are glowing the yellow of freeze-burnt leaves. He's seen them before, somewhere, behind a coffee cup and giving him a bad vibe.

Before Sam can get a round off, his arms become too heavy and hang uselessly at his sides while a strong force keeps him from moving. He can't turn his head enough to spot Dean, but based on Dean's surprised cursing the same has happened to him and probably to Jo and Andy as well.

The thing with the yellow eyes steps closer to them, unarmed, not worried.

"Howdy, Sammy. No need to thank me," it says, amused. Its mouth curves around the words self-satisfied and smug, so utterly gleeful that Sam's head hurts from just watching it. He wants to sinks to his knees from the pain.

"It's you, isn't it? You killed our Mom," Dean says, somewhere to Sam's right, quiet shock in his voice Sam can hear through the low, humming pain in his head.

"Aren't you a sharp tack?" it looks at Dean, then at Sam. "Sorry, but Mommy was nothing personal, just had to nudge you in the right direction a little. Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs first."

"What the fuck do you mean?" Dean asks.

"You really think I'm telling you what great things little Sammy is destined to do? No, you're going to find out the hard way," it mocks them, then smirks. "But I can give you a little teaser: me and Sammy here are going to work closely together soon."

Dean fights against the force, his voice strained from the effort. "You son of a bitch. You leave Sam alone or I swear to god I'm gonna kill you."

The things raises his palms up and shakes them to taunt Dean. "Good luck with that, Dean. I don't die that easy."

Sam clenches his jaw, ignores the pain. "I will never do anything for you."

"Oh, but I've been keeping an eye on you, Sammy, and you've been doing well enough so far. On the road to your destiny."

"The hell does that mean?" Sam shouts.

"Let me show you, Sammy boy. You'll like this."

The ache he just started to manage grows and grows. Sam groans, twists in the grip of the force that's keeping him still. The pain in his head swells more until he sees an image of himself, eyes demon-black, mouth a cruel line, standing over Dean's unmoving body. He screams, wants so badly to press his fists hard against his temples, curl up on the floor from the burning torture.

And that's where he finds himself, on the floor, the pain receding slowly, too slowly. Dean's screaming at the demon, ordering him to fucking stop and Sam would tell Dean that he's okay, but there are words more important to be said. Sam starts reciting Latin though the pulsing ache, the words of the exorcism barely said out loud. He risks a look up when his locked muscles relax enough.

The yellow eyes glint, an infuriating smirk on the demon's lips. "Gotta go, Sammy, but you take care now. I'll be seeing you." And it takes off, black smoke pours out of the body, floods against the ceiling and vanishes through an air vent.

No one's moving for a second, then everyone collapses on the floor when their bodies are freed. First thing Sam looks at is his brother. He can see Dean's hunger for revenge, left unsatisfied, a twin to Sam's own hunger. But they have to put off their revenge, make the most of the shitty situation.

Dean offers Sam a hand, pulls him up, and he stumbles flush against Dean's solid weight, Dean's hands instantly roaming over Sam's body, face, making sure that he's okay. Jo and Andy are behind them, unsure on their feet like a pair of newborn colts. Andy's camera lays on the concrete floor, cracked and broken, but power still on. Jo grabs it, ejects the tape, holds on to it tight. Sam's hands itch to seize it, but Dean's shakes his head, clearly not that worried about what the tape holds.

When Dean suddenly twitches against Sam, pushes him off, Sam doesn't have time to ask what. 

"Out, now," Dean orders and points toward the unguarded crack in the steel doors. "Go!"

Jo and Andy flinch but move, even though Sam suspects that Dean didn't direct his at them. Sam can't help himself, turns to see what kicked Dean into action like this.

Walker moans quietly, crawls for the nearest gun as fast as he can. A quick mental calculation leaves Sam with the conclusion that Dean's right. They don't need to start shooting, fighting, not now when they're so close to getting out. Sam heads for the doors, slithers through with his gun held ready, first securing the route to the main entrance, then turning back to cover Dean. Dean's faster than that, though, storming in like a hurricane.

"Go, go, go!" Dean shouts, pauses to cover them as they head to the main entrance. The door opens easily under Jo's touch, gust of cool air blowing in with it. Dean fires a shot when Sam steps to the yard, but there's no sound of it starting a gunfight. Sam waits by the door, holds it open until Dean appears.

They run.

Sam first looks back when Dean stops to shoot the lock of the main gate. There's no one following them, no one covering the yard. Yet.

Outside the main gate, they stop to draw a breath. Dean lays a hand on Andy's shoulder. "Okay, crew, this is where we part."

Andy collapses on the spot from fear, exhaustion, leans against the chicken wire fence and cries. Dean nods at him, _Ready to go?_ and takes off when Sam nods back. Jo doesn't stay put, follows him and Dean, but Sam figures she can't keep up with them for long.

 

\---

 

After a mile, at the fringes of the forest surrounding the prison, she's still with them, still there when they stop, out of sight and sound.

"What are we gonna do about her?" Sam asks Dean, his eyes checking Jo over.

She's got blood smeared on her clothes, matted in her blond hair. Not the hotshot reporter anymore, more like a giddy teenager -- or pre-schooler -- waving the empty gun, adrenaline-rushed _Can we do that again?_ in her eyes and smile like this world is just a game to her. Maybe they shouldn't let her go out in the big world, who knows what she'll do for her kicks the next time now that she got a taste of it, and Sam knows there will be a next time. Quitting the addiction that makes you come alive under your skin isn't easy. His smile is locked inside him when he looks at Dean.

"Nothing. Not our problem, Sammy m'boy." Dean checks the guns still tucked into his waistband, puts one back, picks one to carry in his hands and discards an empty revolver in the bushes next to them. No use for it anymore. He turns around, starts down a barely visible path snaking through the undergrowth.

"Wait. No. You can't just leave me here. I wanna come with you." Jo jumps in front of Dean, a deep scowl on her pretty face. Angry, scared, stubborn. Like Dean in a way, and maybe Dean is right. They have no use for her, and they didn't do this to her. Not their problem. Dean steps around her and Sam starts after him.

After a beat she's off again, not trying to stop them but walking next to them. "Just let me come with you-- I don't want this anymore." Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees her gesturing over her sharp suit, well, the remains of it at least. "God, I feel so alive now. Like I could do anything, you know?"

Dean doesn't stop, just brushes branches from his face with the gun, and Sam follows his lead. Jo yammers on for a while, something about tiny offices and stupid fucking execs and visionless editors and zombies, and Dean perks a little when she mentions the living dead, but his step doesn't falter. They tune her out, and then it's just them walking and Jo crashing through grass and bushes in her heels. When she stops, everything falls blissfully silent; it's enough to make Dean stop and turn around.

Sam almost walks into him, then stops at his side, not knowing what'll happen, what Dean is thinking. Maybe Dean wants to take her along; to have a small, soft body underneath him at nights -- Sam saw how she looked at Dean when he came to save Sam and fuck, mad, jealous anger rushes through him. Sam's not going to lose his brother just when they're free again.

Sam strokes his free hand down Dean's back, kneads the taut muscles on the way before he slips his hand into Dean's jeans, skirting around the gun in the waistband, a familiar feeling. The skin of Dean's ass is almost silky and the curve fits Sam's palm perfectly. Dean leans into the touch, relaxes slightly, and suddenly Sam doesn't care what Dean is thinking because he knows nothing will take this away from him.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Jo's not as giddy anymore, her eyes wild and almost lost.

Dean's eyes narrow, the corners of his mouth tug up into a shark smile. "You really want to do something with your life? Something good?"

It's not what Jo meant, Sam knows that, doing good and getting steady kicks of adrenaline are two different things, but in their world one tends to come after the other and maybe Jo senses that.

She breathes out slowly, "Yeah."

"Then head out to Harvelle's Roadhouse. If it's still there." Dean gives Sam a quick look and a shrug, shimmies Sam's hand out of his jeans and turns away from the little blond thing for the last time.

Jo frowns, pouts, stands there in blood stains and without words, and Sam leaves her to it. He lengthens his stride until he catches up with Dean, side by side this time, and they fall into step like always.

* * *

**Now, September, 2004, Tucson, AZ**

 

It's not a question of _if_ they bust out Dean's baby, never was. Dean simply says _"Still not driving a fucking minivan, Sam"_ to let Sam know _when_.

The night is on their side, the friendly pitchblack letting them blend into the shadows of the impound yard. They're wearing their darkest jeans and jackets, the closest to all-black they can get at Dean's insistence, _Ninjas, Sam. We're fucking ninjas_ , a big grin and twinkling eyes more than Dean knows Sam can resist. Security cameras, a night guard and a seven feet fence topped with razor wire are not ideal for shurikens, though, so they stalk between the parked cars with handguns and light steps.

The Impala greets them almost immediately, her body a black canvas like the night sky above them, the mist on her hood glinting like stars and diamonds, and she's never looked better.

While Sam's disabling the electronic lock on the main gate of the yard, Dean circles around her, hand skimming the cool metal gently, saying _Hey, baby_ and _I'm sorry I left you_.

His keys were salvaged by Bobby after the cops caught them, buried in a shallow grave of blood-spattered yellow dust of the Roadhouse, but now they've found a way home. The lock turns with its familiar precision, the harsh elements of nature have done no damage, and the door squeaks but Dean knows the trick how to swing it open to keep the sound quiet and all to himself.

The leather of the seat is worn soft, the surface so smooth from years and years of meeting jeans, the sliding and grinding marking it as Dean's territory. The slight stretch of the material is noticeable only to those who have contributed to it, pressed knees and ass against it in a heap; weight stretching the leather like fingers stretching open muscles.

In the darkness, Dean fits the key in the ignition, lets it be and slides his fingers over every line and surface. The quiet night inhabits the Impala with the familiarity of countless hours spent on stakeouts and lonely roads.

When Sam finally signals from the gate, two quick flashes from a pen light, Dean turns the key, lets the rumble of the engine wash over him like he's been swept up by a river with white-water rapids. _Home._ There's nothing standing between the Impala and the open gate, and Dean closes the distance swiftly. Sam's a tall, dark figure in the shadows, halfway inside the car before Dean's pulled her to a halt.

Only a tumble to the street and they're off, Dean gunning the engine for all it's worth, not easing his foot off the gas until they're well out of the city.

It's freedom and fate, cases waiting for them in the future, always something to kill and burn -- nothing's different in this part of the country. But now's not that future, now it's time for a reunion, sweet and proper. A motel room like the hundreds before it.

With hours and days to spend, it goes like this: touches from vein to vein, from hair to hair, whispers against the soul. _Sammy._ Pieces slotting together, complementing; carved muscles, hips, joints; secrets, gasps, thrusts. _Dean, please._ Ebbing and flowing like an ocean in a shallow cove; soft under the hard and hard under the soft; spit, sweat and come; crimson between their palms. Love for the miles of golden skin and the blacktop that's waiting for them.

 

_\--end--_


End file.
